The Times They Are aChangin'
by Angel Monroe
Summary: Surviving, getting home, was supposed to be the difficult part. Once there, they'd go back to living their lives like every other day. That was how it was supposed to be. AU Post S3. Almost all S1-3 characters, multiple pairings, but I like Conby best.
1. The Hard Part

Chapter 1: The Hard Part

Finding Danny and getting home was supposed to be the hard part. It would, they imagined, require living days or weeks or even months in the Cretaceous era before Danny's anomaly would reopen, allowing them to launch a grand rescue plan—excepting, of course, the possibility that Danny would find his own way back and rescue them. Without their anomaly device, they had no way of opening the anomaly back to the future, so they'd need to either wait for a chance opening or find some way to power the device. And having accomplished all that, they'd still need to dodge predators and those flying ant things on their way back to their own time.

It would be difficult, maybe even impossible. It would take time and resources and ingenuity. All in all, it seemed like a hopeless case.

In the morning, after their uneasy night up a tree, it didn't take Abby and Connor as long as they'd expected to pick up Danny and Helen's trail to the second anomaly site. Helen had been too sure of her success and in too much a hurry to cover her tracks to any degree. Abby simply followed the shoeprints while Connor kept an eye out for predators; it took less than half a day, even with Connor limping the whole way.

"Do you think Danny stopped her?" Connor asked while Abby stood considering between two trails.

"Course he did," she replied distractedly, squatting down to take a better look at an indentation in the dirt. She could tell right off which way they should go, but Connor had been looking pretty winded, leaning more heavily than before on his makeshift walking staff. What with falling out of that tree and all, she'd been trying to let him rest here and there, without being obvious about what she was doing. "We're still here, aren't we? And we wouldn't be if Helen had wiped humanity off the face of the earth, yeah?"

"Guess so. Still, what if she did succeed and we're, like, immune because we're not where we're supposed to be in time? It's like when Cutter started talking about Claudia Brown and we all thought he'd gone mental. We couldn't remember her or Claudia or how it was before, but he could because he'd been inside the anomaly when things had changed."

"But the world hadn't changed that much. People still existed and everything. With what happened to Cutter, in our reality same as his, he'd gone through an anomaly. He'd left with the same people and under the same circumstances he had done in his."

"Do we know that?" Connor argued. "I mean, in our evolutionary timeline we'd been working in the ARC for months and had always operated under Leeks. In his, there was Claudia Brown and the ARC didn't exist. There could have been all sorts of other changes that we never knew about simply because, for us, _nothing_ had changed."

Abby got to her feet and brushed her hands off on her thighs. "You know what? You're right. We don't know, and I'm not going to make myself crazy wondering about it. As far as I'm concerned, Danny stopped Helen, for good with any luck. We're going to find him and go home, and home is going to be exactly what it was when we left. Now let's go."

Without waiting for an answer she headed off down the left fork, knowing without having to look that he'd follow. She just couldn't take his doom and gloom routine just now. They still had to find Danny and get the hell home.

Helen's anomaly device was, miraculously, in full working order when they found it, and with Connor's convenient technological expertise, he was able to target site 333. The other side of the anomaly was dry and hot and bright, and there in the middle of it was Danny, sitting quite conveniently on a nearby boulder and flinging rocks out into the desert like he was skipping stones on a pond.

"What took you so long?" he asked, flinging another stone. "I saved the world ages ago."

Then he turned to them with a wide, _Danny_ smile. Hugs and thanks were exchanged all around, and Danny told them with great enthusiasm all about Helen's unlucky encounter with the Cretaceous era raptor.

"If that thing hadn't killed itself trying to get at Helen, I think I'd take him home and have him knighted," Danny quipped. "Now is there any way to detour around the future predators on the way home?"

Connor configured the anomaly device with a different route, taking them through the Jurassic and Permian eras, and after several hours and a few close calls dodging creatures, they came out in what they presumed was modern day. From what they could tell, they were probably back in the Forest of Dean.

"What now?" Abby asked as Connor closed the anomaly behind them. "Should we head back to the ARC?"

Truth be told, she didn't fancy hiking through the woods when they had no sense of where the nearest road might be. She hadn't slept well the night before, what with Connor's making injured-animal noises every time he'd shifted. Add in all the walking they'd done that day and the difficulty of the day previous, she was just about done.

Danny deliberated a moment and, to Abby's immense relief, shook his head. "The anomaly will have alerted them already. Assuming they all aren't wandering through time and space looking for us, someone should be along shortly to investigate. If no one comes in an hour or two, we'll find a road and hitch back to the ARC."

The wait turned out to be nearly an hour. Danny kept watch while Abby and Connor sat against a giant tree trunk talking about all the things they wanted to do when they got back to the flat. Abby was dying for a nice hot shower to wash away the tree sap that had made its way into her hair while she'd slept, and then she'd sleep for a month. Connor said he just wanted to get his things the hell out of Lester's place and back in her second bedroom. His room, Abby added silently. In her mind, it would always be his room.

"Did you miss me?" he asked her, his smile mischievous but his eyes sincere. "Maybe just a little, eh?"

She feigned consideration. "Maybe, just a little. I mean, you may be a slob half the time, but Jack was one all the time so I guess I prefer you in that way."

"Oi!"

"And at least you didn't leave your boxer shorts all over the place like he always does, so that's a plus."

Connor rolled his eyes. "Well after you threatened to kill me the last time, I didn't have much of a choice, did I? And you used that weird little voice you have when you're trying to freak me out, so it sticks in the mind."

"Weird little voice?" she echoed, punctuating every word, eyes narrowed. "I changed my mind. I didn't miss you at all."

Connor smiled at her in that charmingly dorky way of his. "So then you did miss me."

"I never said that," she argued, fighting a smile. "I said I prefer you to my impulsive, irresponsible baby brother. The same baby brother that gambled away my pet and then lied to me about it until you were forced to steal him back. It's not much of a competition."

He laughed and poked her in the side until she squirmed. "I didn't _steal_ him back; I simply asked with great force…and an armed escort. Anyway, it was fun, and I can't argue with the results."

They both quieted, looking away from each other, as Abby remembered in vivid detail the outcome of that particular situation. From his expression she thought Connor was probably giving himself a good mental kick for sapping all the playfulness out of what had been a perfectly casual conversation. She thought about kicking him, too. They'd been back to what they had been before he'd moved out, before the kiss and all the accompanying awkwardness. And he, himself, was such a generally awkward person that any respite from it was a welcome relief.

"So, Danny," he called when the silence lapsed into discomfort, "what's the first thing you'll do when you get back?"

"Stiff drink sounds good about now," he answered distractedly. "Did you hear that?"

Abby jumped to her feet, Connor following more slowly. The footsteps were coming from somewhere to their left. Twigs snapped and leaves rustled as many bodies lumbered through them. Someone was coming.

"Must be them," Abby whispered, coming to Danny's side. "Doesn't sound like campers strolling about. Should we hide, in case it's not them? I don't know what Johnson's men are up to, now she's gone."

Connor chuckled nervously. "And what power do they have, legitimately speaking? Their fearless leader got eaten by a future predator because they were playing with anomalies."

"Doesn't matter anyway," Danny put in. "If they're military men, they'll have scoped the area long before now and will already know we're here. Just keep your wits about you. Still got your pack?"

Abby nodded, picking it up from where she'd left it by the tree and checking through the contents—one stun grenade, two nearly empty canteens, a folding knife, several granola bars, and even more granola bar wrappers. There was a small torch that wasn't heavy enough to be of use as a weapon, a box of strike-anywhere matches, a coiled length of rope, and a small first-aid kit. All in all, if it came to a fight, they were screwed.

As the sounds of movement drew nearer, Connor tried to usher Abby behind him, but she stood her ground right next to him. If something was coming for them, they'd face it together. That's what they always did, in the end.

OOO

Danny was faced away from the sound when the newcomers emerged, watching for a rear ambush as any ex-copper would have done, so he didn't see the look of utter shock cross Abby and Connor's faces when they saw who it was. He didn't know that their silence had gone from anxious expectation to dumbfounded horror, only that they hadn't announced the all-clear.

And even when he did look back and take stock of their rescuers, he didn't really know what he was seeing, except that he recognized one of the number.

"Jenny? What are you doing back? And what on earth have you done with your hair?"

The woman looked around like she wasn't sure to whom he spoke, and then tilted her head in confusion. "What are you talking about Danny? Who's Jenny?"

Then it was his turn to look confused. He looked at Connor for an explanation, but Connor seemed petrified where he stood, staring with wide and wet eyes at the man at the head of the group. He turned to Abby, but she stood with her mouth slightly agape, her bottom lip trembling, looking in the same direction.

Frustrated, he addressed himself to the man in question, "Sorry, I don't believe we've met. I'm Danny Quinn."

The man turned to the amnesic Jenny Lewis and then back, eyes narrowed. "I know who you are, Danny. We've been working together for almost a year now, haven't we?"

Danny looked closely at him, at Jenny, at Connor and Abby and all the military men accompanying the newcomers, and then around at the setting in general.

"All right, somebody start explaining something because I'm beginning to think I've gone off my rocker."

"Something's changed," Connor said finally, his slow, calm voice belying a mind operating at the speed of light. "Something we did or you did, somewhere in time…it's changed the present. It's an alternate evolutionary timeline. Or maybe the original. I don't know. I have no bloody idea."

"Abby, what's he talking about?"

Abby just shook her head, swallowing heavily.

"Connor? English, please."

Connor cleared his throat and nodded to the unnamed man. "Danny Quinn, I'd like to introduced Professor Nick Cutter and, if I'm correct…this woman here is Claudia Brown."

Danny waited for the punch line and, when it didn't come, turned his attention back to the newcomers. Nick Cutter was watching him with intense curiosity, as though he'd actually understood Connor's convoluted explanation and was analyzing the situation. Jenny… Claudia…was looking at them as though sizing them all up for straightjackets. Danny couldn't blame her. He was pretty sure he'd gone and lost it, himself.

And all he could think to say was, "Oh bugger."

Surviving, getting home, was supposed to be the difficult part. Once there, they'd go back to living their lives like every other day. They'd find anomalies and chase dinosaurs and find humour where they could, just as they had a hundred times before. They'd eat and sleep and drink and flirt, just like the day before and the day before that, and so on, and so on.

That was how it was supposed to be, how they'd expected it to be, how they'd taken for granted it would be. They were—as those who assume too much often are—completely and utterly wrong.


	2. Bum Ankle and All

Chapter 2: Bum Ankle and All

"Well," Cutter broke the shaky silence, clearing his throat, "now that introductions have been made all round, what say we head back to the ARC and get you all sorted. I'm sure Lester would like to see for himself you're safe. Less paperwork, you know, if you're not dead."

"Oh good. Yes, Lester's paperwork is the most pressing concern just now," Danny replied in turn, looking around as though waiting for the hidden cameras to reveal themselves. "Well come on, then. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner I can figure out what the hell is going on."

As one the team turned to head back to the road where the vehicles were waiting. All except Abby and Connor. They stayed exactly where they were, staring after the group.

"What does this mean, Connor?" Abby asked, sounding scared. "What about Jenny?"

"Jenny is Claudia," he replied, trying to think through the impossible situation, "in some way, I think. They're the same person but with different personalities, from what Cutter tried to explain."

"And Cutter?"

"Is alive," he finished, and then lost his place again. "Cutter is _alive_, Abby. I don't know how this works but…" But it was a bloody miracle, that's what it was.

Yet in his head it was like all the wrongs of the past months, all the weight and guilt he'd been carrying since watching him mentor die…it was still there, but it was as though it had no source or path or outlet. It had no place and, therefore, no resolution.

Or perhaps he'd never woken from that fall out of the tree and all this was some sort of extended hallucination.

Abby touched his arm, and then his face, and he realised with a warm flash of embarrassment that there were tears on his cheeks.

"I'm fine," he said unconvincingly as he wiped his cheeks with the heel of a hand.

"Are you guys coming?" Cutter's voice called back just as he broke once more through the foliage into their little clearing. "Is there a problem?"

"Course not," Abby answered, taking his arm and putting it over her own shoulder, and it took him a minute to realise she was offering her help because of his ankle. He'd forgotten all about the damn thing. "Got knocked about some in the Cretaceous is all. Might take us a bit longer."

"Ah, let me help you then," Cutter insisted, coming to Connor's other side and putting an arm under his.

The living weight of the appendage on his back, tangible proof of the reality of their new situation, broke Connor's paper-thin control and he couldn't help but throw both arms around the man in what was likely a very unmanly hug.

"All right then," Cutter said kindly, if a little confused, patting him softly on the back as Connor felt fresh tears start silently down his cheeks. "It's okay. Whatever's going on, we'll figure it out."

"Yeah," Connor sniffled, again wiping uselessly at his red and puffy eyes as he back self-consciously away. "We will. Let's just…we'll get it all sorted back at the ARC."

Abby didn't say anything as she took back her place at his side, but he felt her squeeze him round the waist and saw a small, understanding smile on her lips as they all limped back toward the cars.

The ARC-issued SUV was the same as it had been before, right down to the dent Danny had put in the grille trying to herd the Embolotherium back through their anomaly. Cutter drove, Danny sat in the passenger, and Abby and Connor sat silently in the back. Everyone was just trying get a bearing on what was happening.

Claudia had chosen to drive with the military escort, and Connor was pretty sure it was because she was growing uncomfortable with the stares. He, himself, had been watching her great curiosity, remembering all the things his Cutter had told him about her—about how she was like Jenny but wasn't. How she was softer, less rigid but still as obstinate. How she was funny and kind and strong when it mattered. It was hard to imagine, from those few moments in the clearing, that she could be all that.

Abby was more subtle in her curiosity, but only just. The novelty of the whole thing would take its time in wearing off, as they tallied all the differences between this woman and the one they'd known.

Danny was the worst, though. He looked at her as though he were in mourning.

Danny had once asked Connor what Jenny's deal was, what Connor had thought about her. It was as good as a confession: He'd fancied her. When Jenny had almost died, it had been Danny to save her, Danny to almost get himself infected with the fungus trying to keep her from fatal hypothermia. It had been Danny to take it the hardest when Jenny had left. In their short acquaintance, it was more than obvious Danny had come to care very deeply for their friend Jenny.

And Connor could see it broke Danny's heart to think that, in this world, Jenny as they'd known her had never even existed.

In the front seat Cutter glanced over at Danny. "So we never met? You're obviously still with the ARC operation, so does that mean that I'm not?"

"Yeah, well, um…" Danny looked over his shoulder at Connor, clearly out of his element. "Will it hurt anything if I tell him what happened in our timeline?"

He thought about it, logistically speaking. "Don't think so. There's no chance of recurrence, as Helen is no longer a threat, and it isn't as though we're changing the past. Knowledge of one timeline wouldn't change the other, if the other even exists somewhere."

"Right," Danny nodded and turned back to Cutter. "Well, mate, I came on the scene just after you…left it, I guess we'll say, so I wasn't there when everything went to hell. Connor and Abby could tell you more than I can, but from what I gather your wife went off the deep end, had you cloned, took control of the ARC, blew it up, and then shot you." He turned back to Connor and Abby. "Did I miss anything?"

Abby shook her head silently. Connor couldn't answer at all through the lump in his throat. Danny explained it so clinically, but he _remembered_ it, more clearly than anyone. He'd been the only one there when Nick Cutter had died, the only one to hear his half-lucid last request to "Tell Claudia Brown…" Now, he supposed, he'd have gotten his chance, had Cutter actually finished the statement.

Either way, he couldn't get the sound of Professor Cutter's weak, pain-filled voice out of his head when the man had told him it was down to him now.

Cutter didn't seem as shocked as Connor would have expected; in fact, he seemed to take it in stride. In the rearview mirror, he didn't even see the man's eyes widen. "That does explain a few things. By my wife, I assume you mean Helen?"

"Of course, Helen," Danny replied, "What, you have another wife this time around?"

He held up his left hand, on which indeed sat a new wedding band. "Claudia, going on a year now."

Connor spoke up with as much enthusiasm as he could muster just then, "Congrats, Professor. You don't have any little Cutters running around the ARC, do you? I'm sure Lester would love that."

"No," Cutter chuckled, not seeming to mind his cheerlessness. Connor figured he might understand, at least some of it. "Not yet, anyway."

"Wait, what about the others?" Danny cut in. "Sarah and Becker, are they still around? When we left they were going to monitor Johnson's anomaly…god, I don't even know if any of that happened anymore."

It was just starting to sink in how little they knew about this world they'd created, about their own histories, even. If all this time Claudia Brown had been their Home Office handler instead of Leeks…how many events had that altered? That Cutter was alive was huge, and that could only be the tip of the iceberg.

"Stephen!" Abby gasped beside him, and Connor felt an irrational stab of jealousy. "Oh god, what about Stephen? If you're…"

"Stephen died," Cutter cut her off, his voice thick, "not long after the wedding. I don't know how different our histories are, but Helen had been collecting creatures in a compound, we were never sure exactly how. She lured us all there. When things went to hell, Stephen…it was either me or him, and me being newly wed and all, he wouldn't…"

"It wasn't that different for us. Helen had an inside man. Stephen died keeping the creatures from getting out," Connor explained, feeling like a jerk for being jealous of a dead man. Of course he wished Stephen hadn't died. It was just…he and Abby had come a long way in that time.

"Yeah," Cutter nodded sadly, "but as for Dr. Page and the good Captain, when the detector went off they were monitoring the future anomaly, expecting you lot to come back that way. Claudia will have called to update them by now, and I'm sure they'll be waiting back at the ARC when we get there."

The rest of the car's occupants breathed a collective sigh of relief. At least that much was still the same.

A medical crew was standing by when they got back to the ARC. Apparently they'd been gone more than four full days here, though no one was sure if that was because of the time difference between anomalies or the alternate timeline itself.

Embarrassingly enough, Connor was the most worried over. His ankle had swollen substantially, to the point where the doctors thought it might, indeed, be fractured. They kept asking him if he'd been in considerable pain even walking as far as they had and he kept insisting that it hadn't been, though mostly that was because Abby was in the next station and he didn't want her feeling bad.

In addition, after learning he'd fallen quite a distance out of a tree, they took total body X-rays and found two cracked ribs and a very mild concussion. It was a wonder, they said, that he'd trekked all over the Cretaceous era without further exacerbating his injuries. Again he remained tactfully silent.

When Abby's physical was done and the doctors had given her a clean bill of health, she came to stand by Connor's exam table. The doctors had given him some pills to help with the pain, so through his drowsiness he wasn't sure if he only imagined her taking his hand and brushing the hair from his face

"You could have told me," she whispered reproachfully. "I'd have let you rest more or something. Or I could have gone and got Danny on my own and come back for you. Would have saved you a lot of trouble, that's for sure. Look at your bloody ankle."

The doctor had wrapped it and packed it with ice to reduce the swelling, but even with all that he could see that it was at least twice the size it should have been. Still, he tried one last ditch effort to brush it off.

"It really didn't hurt much at the time. I think maybe it was shock or something, or maybe adrenaline. You know adrenaline can make people do amazing things—lift cars off babies and all that. I'm sure that was it."

She looked as if she didn't know whether to laugh or hit him. "You're a rotten liar, Connor, especially hopped up on whatever drugs they're feeding you. I know that thing was killing you the whole time, and you didn't say one word about it."

"I wasn't letting you go without me," he insisted. "What if you'd needed backup? What if a great, hungry raptor had come up and you needed a diversion? And how exactly were you to program the anomaly device without me?" He squeezed her hand and yawned, rubbing his eyes. "We're better together, you and I, bum ankle and all."

He was starting to drift in and out, but he was sure he heard Abby reply, "Yeah, Conn, we are. Bum ankle and all."

He smiled, and then winced a little when he tried to shift into a more comfortable position.

"Try not to move," he heard her say, though he couldn't seem to open his eyes.

"Are you going to be here when I wake up?" he asked, not caring just now if the question was childish.

Again, he thought he felt her fingers brush over his temple, and then, what might have been a kiss on his brow. "Yeah, Connor. I'll be here."


	3. Less Than A Ghost

Chapter 3: Less Than A Ghost

Danny was sat on his gurney, waiting for the doctors to give him the all-clear, when Sarah and Becker strode into the ARC's medical facility.

"Danny!" Sarah called and ran to give him a long, relieved hug. "We were so worried about you guys. We'd just about come up with a plan to come in and rescue you when we got the call."

He smiled and shook hands with a just arrived Becker. "Had to rescue ourselves, then, didn't we? How's it going soldier boy?"

"Quinn," Becker greeted, smirking at the name. "You three seemed to have done well for yourselves. Did I hear right that Helen Cutter's been neutralized?"

He nodded. "By a raptor, of all things. Wasn't pretty; I'm sure you can appreciate that."

"But how did you manage to come out in the Forest of Dean?" Sarah asked.

Danny tilted his head towards the stretcher where Connor was lying, asleep, Abby sitting in a chair at his side. "Helen had one of those devices that opens anomalies. The kid reprogrammed it to avoid the future and all accompanying creatures. Lucky, too, because that boy couldn't have run if his life depended on it."

"Is he all right?"

"He won't be waltzing anytime soon, but he'll live. It's about the least of our concerns at the moment, really."

"Why's that?" Becker asked, looking around as though searching for a physical threat.

"Oh, you two haven't heard this yet?" Danny chuckled. "Apparently we played around a little too much with the past and changed the whole damn course of evolution. Nifty, eh?"

They looked at him as though he'd completely lost his marbles. He thought they were probably fairly right on that point.

"It's fine. Only Connor, Abby, and I know the difference anyway. Couple people here that weren't; couple people gone that were here. Lost a good friend…again."

He'd started off jokingly, but by the end he could feel his face slacken and depress. He kept thinking that Jenny was still there—not at the ARC but in existence. She'd been gone from the ARC so long that he'd gotten used to her absence, but he'd always had this idea in the back of his head that he could find her if he really wanted to, or maybe that she'd ring him if she ever needed help. Just knowing she was in the city somewhere had been a comfortable thought. But now she wasn't. She never had been.

"I don't understand," Sarah said, taking his hand in hers. "You're not making any sense."

He shook his head and pushed a tight, strained smile across his face. "I'm very sure I'm not. Connor's the man to talk to about it, when he wakes up. He'll actually know what he's talking about. In the mean time, I think I'll head down to the pub and get thoroughly pissed. Anyone care to join me?"

The other two shared a confused, alarmed look, and Danny felt like hitting something.

"Never mind. Not much up for company, anyway. Ring me if the world ends again."

He pushed past them and the nurse who'd been coming to give him the results of his blood tests. He didn't care what they said, what they thought, what they did. He didn't care that he'd get hell from Lester for leaving without proper permission from the doctors. This was more than he could take just now, and the only solution was to get as much alcohol into himself as humanly possible and hope when he woke up from his massive hangover, everything would be back to normal.

And when it was, he'd call Jen. He'd call and ask her out for a drink like he should have ages ago, and he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. She wanted away from the ARC—that was fine, they'd leave off the shoptalk—but he had to see her, talk to her, have some part of her…

But it wouldn't happen, none of it, because now there was Claudia Brown and no Jenny. Cutter was alive and had his girl, and Danny had nothing. He had nothing.

Something had been building in him since he'd come face to face with the reality of the situation, and just then he thought if he didn't let it out it would end him. There was a door to his immediate left, and he kicked it in without even trying the knob. It seemed to be a storage room for the medical lab—shelves of bandages and instruments and medicines in cold storage, bottles of pills and jars of cotton balls—and in a pure rage he began throwing anything he could lay hands on against the walls and floor.

It didn't register when glass broke in his hand or debris flew back in his face. He didn't feel it; it wasn't important. All he knew was that he had to destroy something or this thing inside would destroy him. Anger, loss, grief, and pure acidic jealousy coursed through him, because none of them had to carry this with them—Cutter, Claudia, Sarah, Becker, Lester…they didn't have to remember the way Jenny smiled, knowing they'd never see it again.

How had Cutter not gone mad, seeing the woman he loved every day in a stranger's face?

Delicate hands gripped his shoulders and a matching voice called his name, but he brushed both aside and hurled a box of syringes against the wall, sending its contents rolling all over the floor.

"Sarah, move out of the way! He's not in his right mind!"

"Danny, stop!"

"Somebody call a doctor; Quinn's lost it!"

They didn't understand—they couldn't. They hadn't known her. They hadn't seen the fire in her eyes every time she'd tried to make him go, or the strength with which she held herself in a crisis. That disbelieving little laugh she had when he didn't do as she wanted. He remembered, and he'd always have to remember. To forget would be to lose her completely.

This time when hands gripped his shoulders, there was an accompanying sting to go with it, and his tirade ended quite abruptly with a fog spreading quickly through his mind. He looked down to see a nail-polished hand holding an empty syringe.

"Abby?" he questioned, cocking his head to look more closely. "What'd you do?"

"You're gonna be okay, now, Danny," she soothed, her eyes sincere and her smile sad. "I'm here. I understand."

Without his anger to hold him up, he once again felt the crippling grief overtake him, sending him sobbing to his knees. "She's gone, Abby. She's not even a ghost. She never existed."

Abby knelt down beside him and took his head against her breast, letting him hold on to her. "She did," she whispered, running her fingers through his hair. "She did exist, Danny. I remember her, and I miss her too. I miss her too."

Danny took that knowledge with him as the tranquilizer took full affect and ushered him into sleep. Abby understood; Connor would understand. There was someone else in this strange new world who had known her, who remembered her…who could remind him how she laughed if he ever started to forget.

OOO

Abby felt him grow limp and heavy in her arms, and she looked around for a proper place to lay him down.

"Somebody get a stretcher in here quick; he can't lie in all this broken glass."

Fortunately there was already one waiting in the hallway, and with the help of Becker and one of his military team, they were able to get him on it without further exacerbating the injuries he'd done himself. His hand and knuckles glistened with glass, and his face was cut some with who-knew-what. Most of what he'd kneeled in had stuck in the sturdy cloth of this trousers, but they'd have to check if any had gotten through.

Abby, on the other hand, had to sit while the medics picked plastic and glass out of her knees. It wasn't serious, just a small patch-up job and a total of three stitches, but Abby knew Danny would be feeling a whole lot worse when he woke up. They'd had to move him to a private room, one that locked from the outside, and Abby wasn't sure at all how well she liked that idea. The man was grieving, obviously, and he needed to know that he wasn't alone in all of it. Locking him up wasn't likely to give that impression.

"Are we about done here?" she asked the medic finishing up her stitches. "I promised Connor I'd be there when he woke up."

"Just about, ma'am," he replied, tying off the thread and cutting the excess. "There. Just keep these dry for the next seven days and you'll be good as new."

"Great." She climbed gingerly off the table and hobbled over to where Connor lay, still snoring quietly, on his stretcher.

He began to stir, though, when she took his hand in hers.

"Good morning," she smiled when his tired eyes met hers. "You sleep well?"

He looked around, confused, blinking and rubbing his eyes. "I didn't dream that, did I? Cutter? And Claudia Brown?"

"You didn't dream it," she assured him, stroking his palm like she'd stroked Danny's hair. For comfort; for solidarity. They were all in this together now. "The world's changed, and we're the only ones who know it. I guess Cutter was right all along, eh?"

"I always knew he was," Connor sighed, "but for some reason I never imagined it would happen again. I don't understand how it works, really. I wouldn't have thought we could go back to something that had already been erased."

"Don't know. Maybe we're slipping through dimensional portals or something. Maybe our world is out there somewhere, through a different anomaly."

Connor laughed shallowly, tilting his head up to the ceiling. "The guys would absolutely love that. Dinosaurs and inter-dimensional travel. What a job, eh?"

"This won't be so bad, will it Conn? Living here like this, knowing things how they used to be." She didn't want to tell him about Danny's episode, but she couldn't keep herself from thinking on it. Yes, she missed Jenny. She had since the woman had left the ARC almost a year ago, but they had Cutter now, and this Claudia Brown to get acquainted with. Cutter had been able to compartmentalize it and move on with his work; they would, too, right?

"Ups and downs, I'm sure," he replied, looking no more certain of anything than she was. "I suppose we'll see what else has changed and how, and then we'll just have to live with it, won't we?"

And that, she supposed, was the long and short of it. It didn't matter what they thought of this new reality of theirs because there wasn't anything to do about it, either way. Had there been, she was sure Cutter would have found it before.

"Abby."

She looked up to find him watching her carefully, a peculiar expression on his face.

"What's wrong? Does something hurt? I can get a nurse, if you like."

He shook his head and chuckled, though she had no idea what was funny. "No, I'm fine. I think I just need to go home. You think they'd let me out of here soon?"

"I'll see what I can do," she replied, groaning as she got to her feet and felt the pull of her new injuries.

Home, she thought, sounded absolutely lovely.


	4. Home Is Where The Heart Is

_A/N: Okay, so this is a very important chapter. This chapter contains one of the jumping off points to the whole kit and caboodle. In fact, it was because of this chapter that my plot bunnies began going at it like…well…bunnies. So if you review for only one chapter in the whole of this story, make it __**THIS ONE**__. Whatever you're feeling at the end of it—anger, confusion, hysterical laughter—I want to hear about it._

_Pretty please. _

Chapter 4: Home Is Where The Heart Is

"It'll be good to be home," Abby commented for the second time during the short car ride to their flat. Her eyes stayed straight ahead on the road, remote and unreadable, but Connor could feel her anxiety.

She was wondering if everything there would be the same, he supposed, same as he was. Would Rex still be flying around? Would Sid and Nancy have found their way into the food pantry? No one at the ARC had mentioned having stopped by to feed the animals while they'd been away, and they hadn't wanted to ask in case knowledge of their private zoo wasn't as public here. Still, Rex was resourceful and the twins would eat just about anything. Hopefully not all the furniture. Or his video games.

"Yeah, it will."

"I need to ring Jack. Make sure he's still around. If Jenny could just disappear…I don't know. It seems like I don't know much of anything anymore."

He wanted to say something reassuring like, "Of course he's fine," or "It's not all that bad," or even, "At least we've got each other," but he knew Abby wasn't in the mood for empty reassurances. He did put a hand on hers and gave it a light squeeze, letting her know he was still there. He hadn't changed.

"What about you?" she asked, glancing over. "Is there someone you need to check on? Parents? Siblings? God, how can I not know any of this? We've been flatmates for over two years now. You'd think I'd know something."

He smiled sadly. "No, it's fine. Last I checked I've got a mum back in Blackburn. Gran, too, though she's going a bit batty. Keeps calling me Charlie."

"That your dad's name?"

"Nope, her dachshund. Can't see the resemblance myself."

Abby laughed, the first genuine laugh he'd heard since they'd been rescued, and for some reason the sound made him sad.

When they got to the flat Abby opened Connor's door and helped him with the wheelchair they'd been given. He felt stupid being pushed around when not six hours ago he'd been walking around on his own, but the cracked ribs made it difficult to use crutches. He still had no idea how he was going to make it up all those stairs.

"Connor, my key doesn't work in the lock," Abby said, trying twice again without luck. "Do you have yours?"

He shifted about for a moment, trying to get at his back pocket, but when he happened to glance up he noticed something odd.

"Abby, I don't think we live here anymore."

"What do you—?"

Connor nodded to the sign by the door, the one that had had Abby's name on it before. Now it read "Collins."

"Well then where the hell do we live?"

It was a strange thing, calling Cutter to ask for his own address, but Connor figured it was probably the least odd thing to have happed that day.

"You can't find your own house?" Cutter asked, sounding more amused than confused.

"We have a house now? Abby, did you hear? We have a house now." He addressed Cutter again as something horrible occurred to him, "Abby and me, we do still live together?"

"Course you do," Cutter replied, and Connor let out a relieved sigh. "I haven't heard of your doing something stupid enough to get kicked out lately, so I'd say it's a safe bet. Hold on, I've got the address around here somewhere."

The house Cutter directed them to wasn't large by any means, but from out front it didn't look small either. It was in a decent neighbourhood not too far from work, and it had flower beds about the porch that Connor was sure Abby had nursed herself. It was actually quite perfect.

"So," Connor wondered aloud as Abby helped him up the steps, "how exactly are we supposed to get in?"

It would have been too convenient for their keys to work in this lock, but Abby did find a spare set buried in one of the window planters. An old trick of her mum's, she said. Lucky thing, too, because there were multiple locks on the door, presumably to discourage anyone (like themselves) from trying to jimmy their way in. Connor also thought the threat of Helen may have been a deciding factor in that.

"You ready?" Abby asked, her hand hesitating on the knob. Even after he nodded, she didn't turn it. "Don't know what I'm so fussed about. It's just a house, right? Just like our flat?"

"Yeah," Connor assured her. "I'm sure we'll go in and find dishes still in the sink from when we left and Rex flying around our heads, happy to have us home. It'll be just like old times. And, hey, Cutter said I haven't been kicked out recently so it must have more room than the flat."

Abby didn't seem pacified by the last statement; on the contrary, her eyes widened in alarm. "Unless Jack didn't come. Unless he's…"

"We'll ring him," he cut in, putting a hand over hers on the doorknob. "As soon as we get settled, we'll check and make sure he's okay, yeah?"

She nodded shakily and together they opened the door. They didn't have much chance to wander at first, as Abby had to help Connor into the entryway far enough so he could sit down on the stairs, and then into his wheelchair once she'd retrieved it from the porch. How he'd navigate the stairs themselves was an issue they'd have to tackle later on.

A glance into the lounge to their right showed most of the same furniture as they'd had in their flat before—sofa, television, coffee table…various reptile tanks with various reptile inhabitants.

"Rex!" Abby called, looking about and moving on quickly when no Rex appeared. Connor whistled and called for Sid and Nancy, but again, no answering pitter-patter greeted them.

To their left Connor saw what looked like an office, and upon closer inspection he saw some of his own technological experiments laid out on a work table. Blueprints for the newest incarnation of the handheld ADD were pinned up on a bulletin board against the far wall. He was sorely tempted to further investigate, but Abby was already halfway down the hall so he wheeled himself after her.

At the end of the hallway was a kitchen and dining area with another doorway into the lounge. As Connor had predicted, there were dirty dishes in the sink and the remains of a long-abandoned cup of tea on the counter, but still no Rex and still no twins.

"What do you think happened to them?" Abby asked, dropping sadly into a chair. Connor's heart broke for her, knowing she would take his loss hard. To him Rex was a good little mate, but Abby was the one who'd saved him originally. She'd cared for him, nurtured him, risked her job to keep him out of the ARC scientists' hands.

"Don't know," he replied, putting a hand on her knee because it was about the only place he could reach with his cracked ribs. He noticed new bandages on her knees and wondered when she'd scraped them, but it didn't seem like the moment to bring it up. "Maybe…maybe we found a way to get them back through their anomalies. Maybe they're at home, hanging out with their mates, reminiscing about old times."

Abby nodded absently, sniffling. "I, um…I should call Jack, make sure everything's good there. Is it weird that our mobiles still work?"

Connor shook his head, glad for the change of subject. "Not really. For all intents and purposes, we are the same people here as we were before. Many of the events that happened to us will probably be the same, given they happened outside the influence of people or places that no longer exist. I bought my phone last year when my old contract was up, and I have to assume my other self did too."

If Abby heard any of it she gave no indication; she just stared off into the distance all the while, likely thinking of something else entirely. And then she just snapped out of it and stood, grabbing her phone and stepping toward the lounge. "I'm going to make that call. Are you okay here? Can you get around all right?"

He nodded. "I'll be fine. I'll just see what I can find to eat that doesn't require standing up."

She walked away into the lounge, and Connor took a moment just to breathe. The day seemed like it had lasted a week, and now that he thought about it he hadn't gotten a decent moment to himself at all until just now. He'd been around so many people, old and new and only recently deceased…it was a lot to take in. It was impossible to take in. He wondered how Cutter had done it all on his own, without someone to experience it with like he had Abby and Danny.

He wondered, too, how Danny was doing now that he was alone with it.

A sound caught his ear in the quiet of the kitchen, jerking his eyes to the back door. It was a solid wood door with a window in the top half, but the shade was down and from his chair he wouldn't have been able to see out anyway, even if he could reach to pull the shade up. The noise, a faint scratching near the bottom, sounded eerily like something he'd seen in a horror movie once about a killer who got into people's homes by pretending to be the dog. Not a pleasant association, by any means.

He would have called Abby, but he thought it wouldn't look very manly to call a girl in to check out what might be a serial killer at the back door. Not chivalrous at all. So gathering his strength, he pushed himself out of the chair and peeked out the blinds. There was no one there, that he could see anyway. What he did see was some sort of greenhouse attached to the back of the house. Plants grew in every corner and in large plots on tables throughout the room. Some hung from the ceiling or wound themselves along the walls, so thick the room looked like a jungle. Abby's work, he was positive.

The scratching came again, and when he looked down through the glass he could just see two little spotted tails swishing about excitedly.

"Sid, Nancy!" he cried, stumbling back into his chair with a groan. "Oh, you have no idea how happy I am to see you guys! Abby!" He wheeled his way back to the door and, with some difficultly, pulled it open. "Abby, come and look at this!"

Abby didn't come running, but the twins scampered into the room like they had rockets tied to their hindquarters. They circled his chair dizzily and then both, simultaneously, tried to climb into this lap.

"Easy, guys, easy. That leg there is…Rex!"

The flying lizard swooped through the open door and settled himself on the counter, chirping in what Connor imagined might have been welcome.

He called Abby again, but she didn't come. She'd been in the living room for quite a while now, he realised, unless she'd gone upstairs for some reason. But she wouldn't have gone without letting him know what was going on with her brother.

"Oh no," he breathed, gently pushing aside the twins so he could wheel himself into the lounge.

Abby was sat on the sofa, her phone in one hand and a framed picture in the other. The picture seemed to have her mesmerized, her features sad and very confused.

"Abby," he called one more time, but she didn't look up. "Abby, did you…did you talk to Jack? Is he…" He licked his lips nervously, scared to hear her answer. Yes, Jack could be a little menace, but he was Abby's brother. She loved him, he knew, more than anything in the world. She _couldn't_ lose him. "What I mean is, is he all right?"

"Yeah, he's fine," she replied dully, not looking away from the picture.

From the way she was acting, Connor didn't know if he should believe her. There was _something_ wrong, he could tell. Even when Rex glided in and landed on the arm of the couch, nudging her arm, she just stroked his back absently and went back to her previous position. "Are you sure he's okay? You're not acting like you got good news today."

"I don't…" She looked up finally, her eyes narrowing on him like she didn't know who he was. Her mouth opened and then closed again, and then she looked back at the picture.

"Abby, darling, you're scaring me." She flinched at the casual endearment—actually flinched. He didn't know what to make of it. "Tell me what's the matter."

She looked up again and waved the picture slightly, but it was still turned toward her so he couldn't see the subject.

"What's that you've got there?" he asked, wheeling around the sofa until he could look over her shoulder.

And then he stopped. He stopped moving, he stopped breathing—he just stopped.

The picture was of the two of them, Abby and him, somewhere outside in the sunshine. If he'd been looking at himself, he'd have noticed that his hair was combed neatly and his face shaved cleanly, and that it made him appear quite a bit younger than usual. He might have noticed that he looked especially dashing, and he most definitely would have made some sort of James Bond reference.

But he wasn't looking at his own image; he was looking at Abby's.

In the picture, her hair had grown out a bit, a little longer than it had been the year before, and was set in loose waves around her face. She had less makeup around her eyes than she usually did, but enough to make the blue really pop, even in the picture. And her dress…Oh, her dress was absolutely beautiful, an off-the-shoulder bit that corseted down to her waist and then fanned out just a little in smooth, white waves down to her ankles.

In the picture, he was standing behind her with his right arm around her shoulders so she was leaned back against him, his left arm around her waist, hers atop his, their fingers intertwined.

And on their left hands were matching rings.

"Connor," she gasped, her voice weak with what might have been shock. He certainly had that.

"Oh my god," he breathed, a tear dropping down his cheek from a hundred emotions he couldn't begin to describe.

Suddenly it made sense: the way the doctors at the ARC hadn't questioned Abby's presence by his side, the things Cutter had said about them living together. Everybody expected it because nobody knew it should be any other way. Nobody knew how monumentally their world had just changed…nobody but them.

"Connor, we got married."

_A/N: Sooooooo? What do you think? Horrible, brilliant, dull as hell? I won't know if you don't tell me. And once again, thanks for reading. _


	5. Save Me From Myself

_A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! I love hearing what you think about my writing, almost as much as I love writing it. Anyway, here's the next bit. Sorry it took so long. If I could skip work every day and write instead, I'd be in seventh heaven. _

Chapter 5: Save Me From Myself

"What on earth was that about?"

Nick chuckled under his breath as he settled himself down next to his wife on the sofa. "You know, I really don't think they're making this whole 'evolutionary timeline' thing up. Abby and Connor didn't even know where their house was."

Claudia didn't appear amused. "What if they just…caught some sort of hallucinogenic illness through one of the anomalies. They did go through five or six of them in the course of those four days."

"The blood tests will tell us, but I doubt it. What they're talking about—doing something in the past and inadvertently altering the present—it's very possible. Probable, even, given how long we've been at this. Do you know what they told me earlier, on the car ride to the ARC?"

She shook her head.

"You saved my life."

"Come again?"

"Well," he amended, "not in so many words, exactly, but they said that, in their present time, I died the day Helen took over the ARC."

Her eyes widened but she didn't immediately tell him it was all nonsense. "You mean in the explosion?"

"No, apparently some time after the explosion, Helen shot me." At his wife's stunned silence, Nick felt the need to elaborate. "I remember there being a moment there, after the bomb went off and we were all outside, when I thought about going back in for her. Do you remember that?"

"You started towards the building," she agreed, eyes fixed as she remembered that day. "I asked you not to go, begged you to stay with me. I think I even blackmailed you into staying with some sort of line about going off and dying and leaving me alone with all the subsequent paperwork. In the end the fire brigade pulled her out and we had three peaceful days before she escaped her heavily guarded hospital room. And I'd still like to know how she was able to do that."

He nodded, smiling at the memory. "I think out there in the car park, that must have been it—you know, the defining moment. If I'd have gone into that building to get her—if you hadn't been there to stop me going back in—she'd have got her chance. So, you see, you save my life that day."

"But why was I not there?"

He debated telling her, knowing it would most likely cement in her mind the conclusion this was all rubbish. But really, she deserved to know why everyone was giving her funny looks and calling her names she didn't go by.

"It's sort of hard to explain. You were a different person…you had a different name and we met a different way, and I think you must have been different in other ways because she and I…I guess we weren't together back then, before I died."

"But how can that be? How could you be the same and the others be the same, and I be different?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just as ignorant of the physics of it as you."

Instead of telling him to stop being stupid or that he was just as crazy as the rest, she just nodded her head and cuddled further into him on the sofa, tucking her feet up underneath her.

"Do you think you loved her, the other woman who wasn't quite me?"

"No."

She looked up at him, and he couldn't tell if it was hurt or doubt in her eyes. "Why would you say that?"

"Because," he replied, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, "if I had loved her the way I love you, then after the bomb went off, I wouldn't have gone back in."

She smiled softly, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to his lips. "I'm very glad I was there."

He smiled and kissed her temple, then turned up the volume on the evening news. "So am I."

OOO

Abby had finally put the picture frame down when she couldn't stand looking at it anymore, but it wasn't so easy to get away from the implications. Everywhere in the house there were signs of it—their coupleness. In the office her picture was tacked up below Connor's blueprints like people kept photos of their spouses on their desks at work. In the kitchen she noticed a new set of dishes, the kind one might get as a wedding gift. Upstairs she found their bedroom—_their_ _bedroom_—with their clothes intermingled in the wardrobe. In the bathroom their toothbrushes shared the same cup.

They were married. She and Connor were married.

And she hadn't the faintest idea how to feel about that.

"Abby," Connor called from the foot of the stairs, "are you all right up there?"

She was sat on their bed, running a hand over the unfamiliar duvet. It looked worn-in and well used, and she wondered how long ago they had moved into this place. Was it before or after the wedding? How long ago was the wedding?

_The wedding_.

Every time she thought it, her brain sort of skipped a beat and landed right back where she started: confused and doubtful and a little scared. This wasn't something external like Cutter's being back and Claudia's being real. This changed the whole nature of who she and Connor were, separately and together. What, she wondered, could have changed in their pasts or presents to have gotten them to this place?

"Come on, come down and have a cup of tea. We have to talk about this eventually, yeah?"

And how were they to go about talking about it?

_Gee, I guess we're married now. Might as well skip from point A to Z and jump in the sack together, eh? After all, our clothes look so pretty sitting next to each other in the wardrobe, so why fight it?_

Abby was pretty much the queen of avoiding awkward situations. When Stephen had inconveniently forgotten asking her to dinner, she'd very conveniently chosen to forget it herself. When Connor had professed his love for her and then promptly backpedaled, she'd let it go and never said a word about it again. After she kissed him, she'd made it very plain that there was to be no weirdness whatsoever about it, just so they could get back to normal again. She hated tense, awkward conversations, and she'd spent a ridiculous amount of energy avoiding them over the past few years.

This was going to an epically awkward conversation.

"Abby, if you don't answer me in the next ten seconds, I'm going to have to come find you, which is going to mean climbing up these stairs. With my bum ankle. And my broken ribs. My poor, poor broken ribs that will hurt worse with every single stair I climb, just trying not to fall and break my neck."

In spite of herself, she giggled. "Don't do that," she called back, her voice shaking with laughter.

"Then come down, and save me from doing further injury to myself."

With a sigh she smoothed out the duvet again and looked once more around the room. There were more pictures in here, pictures of them together in various places doing various things, and she wondered how many of them had been taken before they were together and how many after. They all looked about the same, and that gave her another curious thought: Did they already act like a couple? And how fine was the line between what they were in this place and what they'd been before?

"I'm starting counting," Connor threatened, and she rolled her eyes and headed out down the hall. "One…two…three…."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she huffed, looking down from the top landing to where Connor was sitting in his chair, grinning like a little boy who'd just gotten his way. "You, sir, really need to learn some patience."

"Overrated," he said with a smile. "Come make us a cup of tea; I can't reach the kettle."

"Says the man who moments ago threatened to climb up the stairs on a broken ankle."

"Empty threat. Come on down. We have a lot to talk about. And by the way, when and what did you do to your knees?"

"Kneeled in some glass," she sighed, descending the stairs with care. "I'll explain over tea."

So as she set the kettle and prepared two cups and saucers, she told him about Danny's destroying the medical storage and having finally to sedate him for his own safety. She told him about Danny's desolate words just before passing out, and how she'd tried to comfort him in what ways she could. Connor didn't say anything, just sat soberly and listened, but she didn't need encouragement. It gave her something to talk about instead of the elephant in the room, and she was grateful for it, even if she was sorry for Danny.

Only problem was that by the time the tea was ready the story had been told and there was nothing left to discuss but the one thing she dreaded most.

"So we're married," Abby sighed as she poured the tea and added milk and sugar.

"Yeah," he drawled, obviously having not thought too far ahead in this conversation.

"Well, not us, exactly. Our alternate universe selves. Not quite the same."

"But they are. As I said before, we are the same people. Just because we don't remember it doesn't mean it's any less real—any less legal and valid, according to everyone we know—than if we went and got it done right now."

"That's true," she said hesitantly, "but that doesn't mean we have to do anything about it now. I saw a guest room upstairs, though I think you're going to have to stay on the sofa anyway, until you're well enough for the stairs."

He looked a bit disappointed, but he nodded and smiled anyway. "Right. It'll be just like old times."

"Yeah." Just like old times. That's just what they needed after all this chaos.

Wasn't it?

"Look, Abby, I really think we need to figure this thing out. I'm just as freaked out about this as you are right now, but I'm not about to ignore it. If you want to keep things exactly the way they are with us, that's fine by me. If you want to pretend to be happily married around the others and save ourselves the questions, I'll play along. And if this marriage thing absolutely scares the hell out of you," he shrugged, his dimple popping out with his mischievous grin, "well, I guess there's always divorce, though I don't think I'm that bad a catch, really."

Abby let out a watery chuckle, holding back panic by sheer force of will. How was she to figure out what she felt about being married to a man who she could barely admit she fancied, even to herself? It was impossible. They'd never had a proper date, nor even an inkling of one, and now…

Had she ever thought of him as fanciable? Sure. She'd kissed him, hadn't she? Could she imagine her life without him? She tried, sitting there at the table with Connor waiting for her to say something, and she couldn't see it. The thought of something happening to him the way it had to Stephen made her chest tighten and tears spring to her eyes. Was that all love was—the absolute inability to walk away from someone? She didn't know, and worse yet, she didn't know if she _should_ love him.

Everything he said pointed towards keeping things casual, friendly, the way they'd been when they first met. There had been that undercurrent of _something_ between them for a while now, ever since she'd started hating his girlfriend and he'd admitted he loved her.

And then taken it back.

This was absurd.

Obviously he wanted to take a few steps back, let the tension cool for a bit. She could do that. It was the right thing, anyway, with the least chance of awkwardness. And after all, she was the queen of avoiding awkward situations.

"Talk to me, Abs. What are you thinking?"

"I don't know," she sighed, looking away from his questioning eyes. "It's all just a big mess in my head at the moment. I mean, I've just seen my own wedding photo and it's like looking at a stranger. I've no idea what your take on all this is, but all I keep thinking is that I'm going to wake up any minute now. So maybe we should just…let it sit for the night. Try and figure it out in the morning, yeah?"

Again with that forced nonchalance, he smiled and nodded. If he thought she couldn't read right through it, he wasn't nearly as brilliant as he claimed to be. "Right. Of course. It's been a long day. We don't have to decide anything right away."

"It has been a long day," she agreed, standing to pour her barely touched tea in the sink, "and tomorrow's not likely to be much shorter. Do you need anything before I run a bath?"

"No."

She looked around the kitchen, feeling like she was abandoning him. He was dealing with all this, same as she was, and here she was leaving him alone, half-crippled, so she could wash the tree sap out of her hair.

"I, um, didn't check if the loo down here has a bath, but if it doesn't we'll have to figure out a way to get you up those stairs. Either way I'll bring down some pillows and blankets for the sofa."

"That would be great."

"And if you need anything just call up the stairs. I'll keep the bathroom door cracked so I'll hear."

"Abby."

"Yes?"

"I'm not an invalid. Go and take your bath."

His voice was abrupt, angry even, and she felt her cheeks warm with the reprimand. "Okay," she nodded, looking away. "Sorry. I'll just…I'll be down again before bed to bring your…pillows and things."

Without another word she walked past him down the hall and up the stairs, waiting until the water was running to let herself cry so he wouldn't be able to hear it. By the time she came back down again with the extra pillows she found in the guest room, she was well enough to wish him a good night without giving herself away.

But she lay awake a long time after that, smelling his shampoo on her pillow and running her hand absently over the indentation on his side of the bed.

_A/N: Sooooo….reviews = pixie stix inspiration. Does the body and soul a whole lot of good. Plus, how am I supposed to know what you think unless you tell me, right? So tell me. Pretty please. I'm begging here. _

_Oh, and for those who are worried about Danny, that's next up on the docket. Stay tuned. _


	6. Consolation

Chapter 6: Consolation

Danny came back to the world by degrees. The first thing he was aware of was that someone was pounding on the side of his head with what had to be a crochet mallet. The next was that he couldn't lift his hand to bat away said mallet because his arms were too heavy to lift. It took him a good three or four minutes to realise that the reason they were too heavy was that they were, in fact, strapped down to the sides of the bed. It seemed an unpromising start to the day.

He took a moment to try to remember how he'd gotten to this point, and the more he remembered the more he wanted to forget.

The last day played out like one horrible, never-ending nightmare. Things had started off well enough and then just gotten worse and worse from there, and now he was strapped to a bed wondering if Lester would be garnishing his wages for the next twenty years or so for all the damage he'd done in that supply room. He should have just stayed asleep.

"Danny, are you awake?"

He must have been more groggy than he'd thought because he hadn't noticed Sarah sitting in the chair next to his bed until she brought it to his attention. She had a book sitting open, face-down over her knee as though she'd been reading it until a moment ago. Her eyes were soft, worried, and a little tired. There wasn't a window in the room, but he assumed it was probably only a few hours since he'd been knocked out.

He would certainly have to talk to Abby about knocking him out, when next he had the chance.

"So," he sighed, looking round his little prison cell, "I'm a nutter now, am I?"

"No, of course not."

He arched an eyebrow and jiggled his leather restraints.

"Yes, well, maybe a little," she amended. "You did fly off in a rage and destroy a perfectly harmless storage cabinet. They're just worried about you doing yourself further harm. Have you taken a look at your hands, by the way?"

He looked down and found both bandaged from halfway up his forearms to eh/HeHHHl;'sfl;'sdlf;' first knuckles. Flexing and bending his fingers pulled at some injury underneath, but he wasn't in the mood to investigate.

"I'll admit, not my brightest idea. How long do they plan to keep me in here?"

"You're free to go as soon as the doctor sees you've calmed down. He wants to make sure you're only angry, not unstable."

He grinned at that. "I've never been quite stable, but I'll try to fake it for the doctor."

She smiled tightly but didn't laugh with him. Her brow was tense, a frown resting between her eyes. He knew he had put it there.

"I'll be all right," he assured her. _As long as I don't think about it. _"Long day, you know? Wouldn't be able to loose my hands for me, would you? I'd quite like to use the facilities."

"Well I don't know. Are you feeling any inclination to throw something against the wall. I'd just like to know so I'm braced to duck."

He gave her his most charming smile in lieu of an answer. She rolled her eyes and started to unbuckled the belts around his wrists.

"Becker's going to have my head for doing this. You know he didn't want me coming in here on my own, even with you strapped down and all. Thinks you've gone off."

"Quite chivalrous, our captain," Danny commented, rubbing his wrists over the bandages. "What, are you and he a thing in this reality?"

She looked put out, stepping back as he stood to stretch his sore muscles. "Course not. You should know that."

"Why? Are you and me a thing in this reality?"

"No," she replied again, more softly. "We're not. Danny, you keep talking about realities as though there's more than one, and it's starting to worry me. You go completely crazy over losing this woman who isn't even real—"

"She was," he cut in angrily, stepping up so they were inches apart. "She was real, Sarah, and _you_ should know that. You should, but you don't because everything's fallen apart and come back together differently. And I guess I'm going to have to live with that, but don't try to tell me that it didn't happen. It did."

With a loud _thwack_ the door burst open to find Becker holding a gun on him as though he were a dangerous creature. A small part of him found that amusing; another small part took it as a dare. Would the man really shoot him if he took another step? Would that be so bad?

"It did," he repeated once more before backing away and walking past her into the loo.

Despite Becker's misgivings, Danny behaved himself well enough to warrant release after a brief psychiatric evaluation. Also against the captain's exhaustively expressed advice, Sarah took it upon herself to drive Danny home, as the tranquilizers he'd been shot up with would not allow him to drive his own motorcycle.

He did live in the same flat, which he was disappointed to see, complete with the same dirty dishes in the sink and the same framed picture of his brother sat on the shelf.

"Come on in," he called over his shoulder as he walked through the door, not really caring if she followed. Certainly his dirty clothes hung over the back of the sofa didn't make the best impression, but he was far past caring at this point. A long shower, a lot of alcohol, and a week's worth of sleep were the only things on his mind, and not necessarily in that order.

"You want a beer?" he asked as he began tossing old takeaway containers from the refrigerator. "I'm having a beer. I never did make it to the pub earlier."

"A beer would be nice," she replied, which surprised him enough to look up at her.

Instead of going straight to the couch as a person familiar with the place would have done, she ambled about looking at the books on his shelves and the few personal items he kept out, not seeming to notice the mess. That confirmed, then, that they hadn't been seeing each other in this reality either, though he caught that sort of vibe off of her. Why else, after all, would she have been sitting by his hospital bed?

Brushing the thought away, he handed Sarah her beer, took one for himself, and then fell back on the recliner leaving her with nothing to do but sit on the sofa and nurse her drink. Talking wasn't one of the three things on his to-do list, so he let the silence stretch into awkwardness without bothering to feel it himself. He didn't do awkward, and he hadn't asked her to stay. Really, he had no idea what she was planning to do with herself now she was here.

"What was she like?" she asked without preamble, her tone lacking the timidity he thought the situation probably warranted. "This, Jenny person."

"Jenny Lewis. What's it matter? You'll never run across her on the street."

She shrugged, looking perplexingly at ease. "Curious, is all."

He debated a moment whether to bring it all up. He could very well end up destroying his whole flat if he wasn't careful, but then it wasn't worth much as it was. And what would it hurt, humoring her? At least then there might be someone else to know.

"She started off in public relations," he began, staring up at the ceiling and twisting the neck of his beer between his fingers. "That's how she got tangled with the ARC. And she was brilliant at it, let me tell you. The first time I met her, she got me thrown off my own investigation and got Connor out of lockup by phoning the Home Secretary." He smiled, remembering how angry he'd been at the time. "Guts. She had guts by the litre. I can't count how many times she threatened to have me arrested. I think she even threatened to shoot me once. Standing there looking at her, you wouldn't think she had that kind of backbone, but she'd fool you every time."

Sarah had a small smile on her lips like she could see it in her mind. "What did she look like?"

"Exactly like Claudia Brown," he said immediately, and she arched her eyebrows in surprise, "except her hair was darker. Her clothes were…sharper, more purposefully put together, I guess. She always looked brilliant and she knew it. I know I only just met the woman, but I don't see that sort of confidence when I look at Claudia. That was purely Jenny."

"You do know she's married? Claudia, I mean," she pointed out, taking a long pull off her beer to finish it off. Without invitation she went to his refrigerator and took them both out a second before returning to the couch.

He took his from her and lifted it in toast before continuing. "Doesn't matter, really. She isn't my Jenny like I wasn't Jenny's Cutter and Jenny wasn't Cutter's Claudia."

"You've completely lost me now."

He was sure she didn't really believe him up to this point, and this would probably just throw her over the edge on the issue of his sanity, but he needed to talk it out. He needed to try and understand it himself. Couldn't stop now.

"All right, so if you buy this whole evolutionary timeline theory of Connor's, then from what I understand there have been three separate timelines since the ARC's creation—or possibly only two, but for simplicity's sake we'll say three."

He waited to see if she was following, and she nodded him on.

"First there was Claudia Brown, with the anomaly project since it's inception when Cutter and the others discovered the first anomaly out in the Forest of Dean. She and Cutter got on extremely well, and then one day he comes back from an anomaly and finds there's no Claudia Brown."

"There's Jenny Lewis?"

"Not yet, but they met soon after that. She was hired on to be the ARC's public relations liaison, as I said, and over the next year she became very attached to him. But from what I've heard he was always thinking of Claudia Brown. I don't know how he did it, really—seeing Claudia's face, hearing her voice, and knowing it wasn't really her. So after he died—"

"He died?" she cut in, unmindfully spilling her beer down her front. "Oh, damn!"

Danny took her beer and left to fetch her a towel. "Sorry, didn't mean to spring that on you. I keep forgetting what people do and don't know here."

"It's fine, it's fine," she assured him, toweling herself off. "But he died? When?"

"That's its own long story, but suffice to say, Jenny took it pretty hard. I only met her just before Cutter died. I barely got a chance to know her before she quit the ARC…"

"But you fell in love with her," Sarah surmised, rolling the used towel between her hands. "And then the world changed again."

"I don't know if I loved her, as such," he admitted, thinking hard on it.

He'd been doing all right without her before everything changed, before he realised that his window was gone, and that the woman he'd come so much to admire was all but dead to him now. He'd accepted her loss from the ARC team because he'd known it was best for her, if not for the rest of them.

And now, if you took to this evolutionary timeline theory, she _was _Claudia. And Claudia was happily married to Nick Cutter, the man Jenny had never got over.

"The thing is," he mused aloud, talking more to himself than to Sarah, "Jenny was never really happy there at the ARC because she was always running from the idea that she had been someone else and lived another life. I think she always wondered if this Claudia Brown person could have done things better or stopped things happening the way they did. Or if Cutter could have loved her then.

"So maybe it's better. Maybe she is who she was always meant to be, now that she's back to being Claudia. I don't know. It's all pretty theoretical in the first place, isn't it?"

He ended softly, his anger all but dissipated in the light of realization. The sadness wasn't gone, the sense of loss, but it was the same feeling he'd had when Jen had left the ARC. It was more for himself than for her.

"Wow," Sarah sighed, running her hands through her hair. "That, I can honestly say, is the most incredible thing I've ever heard. And that's saying something, what with finding out about the anomalies by almost being eaten by an Egyptian goddess."

He chuckled, the tension easing up in his shoulders with the release. "Yeah, pretty fantastic, I'd say." He glanced out the window and noticed the inky blackness of night outside his window. A glance at the clock told him it was well past eleven. "Look, you should head on home and get some sleep. It's been a long day for all of us and I doubt Lester's changed enough to cut us any slack on that."

"No," she smiled, standing to her feet, "some people don't change. Speaking of which, do you have a shirt or something I could borrow for the trip home? Wouldn't want to be stopped, smelling completely wrecked."

He laughed again and went to find a clean shirt. When he came back into the lounge she already had her jacket laid over the back of the sofa with the rest of his dirty clothes. Her still-damp blouse clung to her front, which he couldn't help but notice, and she was toying distractedly with the top button.

"Thanks," she said when she saw him, taking the shirt from his hands and looking around. "Is there a place I can get changed?"

"Right, yes, just through here."

He led her through to the bathroom, but for some reason he didn't leave when he should have. She stood, waiting for him to, and he knew he must look like a right idiot, but he was too busy thinking on everything.

And finally, after a full unnerving minute, he came out and spoke on it. "There was a thing, I think, between you and me," he said, leaning against the doorjamb. "In the other world, I mean."

"Really?" she asked, not quite casually. "Was there?"

He nodded, remembering what she'd said just before he went through the anomaly. How she'd wanted to come with him. She hadn't said it as though speaking from professional curiosity. Her words had been strained with emotion, personal attachment.

"Neither of us ever acted on it, but it was there. I watched you play dress up with Abby in the safe-house, and I knew it then. I came after you when the medieval knight took you hostage, not because it was my job but because I couldn't stand thinking he would hurt you. Did that happen here, too?"

"It did," she replied, sounding slightly out of breath.

"And I know by the way you watched over me in that hospital room that there's something on your end."

She didn't say anything, but she couldn't seem to look away from him. Her eyes were wide, but not embarrassed. Almost afraid.

"There is, isn't there?"

"Yes," she whispered, "but that was before."

"And what's changed? Have you changed?"

"Don't know. I don't think so."

"Have I changed?" he asked, amused.

"It's hard to say."

"I don't think I have." He moved closer to her, feeling the heat of her body in the small room. She was alive and real and tangible in front of him, and that set his pulse racing in a totally familiar way. "So what's changed?"

"It's not the right time," she reasoned, glancing over her shoulder as she bumped into the sink.

Personally, he wasn't really in the mood for reason. Reason had stopped being pertinent about the time he started theorizing about alternate realities. This was about bringing things back to basics. Some things never changed.

She didn't fight him when he kissed her, deep and forcefully. On the contrary, she threw herself into the embrace with a fervor that spoke of prolonged anticipation and a need deeper than reason or even self-preservation. She wasn't a delicate woman, by any means, and when her fingernails scraped across his scalp he just about lost it then and there.

Her beer-stained blouse hit the floor in record time, and his shirt joined it soon after. They made a trail into the bedroom, pushing and pulling and bruising all the way as they bumped into furniture and walls.

Their first time was quick and heated, borne of desperation and a need to dispel old ghosts.

The second was slower, more deliberate. He touched her face and looked into her eyes as he came, eager to show her he wasn't thinking of anyone else.

The third time they moved together, came together, spoke each other's names into the darkness. Afterward she laid her head against his chest and fell asleep quickly, but he stayed awake a long time, wondering why he felt so ashamed of himself.


	7. Two Steps Back

_A/N: In general, I've had an absolutely horrific week spent negotiating with Cruella De Vil's less nice sister (and ten brownie points to whomever can tell me where that's from). But...I finally got internet on my home computer, which makes it a lovely night. And as a reward, I'm posting a new (long-overdue) chapter. Hope you enjoy. _

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Chapter 7: Two Steps Back

In the morning things weren't exactly back to normal as Connor had hoped they would be, but he knew it was his fault as much as hers.

He could hear her moving around upstairs, getting washed and dressed for work, but he had a hard time doing the same for himself. The cast on his ankle wasn't supposed to get wet so he couldn't shower, and with his ribs he couldn't pull himself into and out of the tub without pain lancing through his chest. Abby could have helped him, he was sure, but he wasn't about to ask after snapping at her the way he had the night before. So there was nothing left to do but sponge himself off and wash his hair bent forward over the side of the tub. It wasn't comfortable and he made a right mess of the bathroom, but it was about as good he could do.

He couldn't get up the stairs for clothes so he had to sit about wearing last night's pajamas until Abby came down, looking infuriatingly fresh and beautiful, and then the trousers she brought him didn't fit over his cast. In the end he had to put on another set of pajama bottoms because that was the only option.

"It looks fine," Abby commented as they ate their breakfast, never truly looking at him but watching Rex glide about around them. "I'm sure everyone will understand."

She hadn't more than glanced at him all morning, nor had she spoken anything but meaningless pleasantries. He couldn't tell if she was angry or hurt or confused or scared at this point, after the way they'd left things the night before. He didn't even know if _he_ was angry or hurt or confused or scared about her reaction, and that made him reluctant to bring it up at all. He still had no idea what he was supposed to feel about them being married, but at least he'd been willing to get it out in the open. She was just hiding from it, and that stung more than a bit.

The car ride was silent, talk radio filling the space between them. A traffic backup somewhere far from their route. A new toy being pulled out of stores because of an unexpected choking hazard. A man killed violently in his home the night before, his ex-wife suspected.

Didn't paint an optimistic picture of marriage, now did it?

At the door they ran into Sarah and Danny, and the two looked about as tense as he was sure he and Abby did. When they all met, the two mumbled quick good-mornings and headed off in opposite directions inside the ARC. A little strange, maybe, but Connor had enough to think about on his own without dipping into other people's lives.

They put away their things, side by side, and went together into the atrium, but it was as though there were an empty space beside him. He didn't feel her there with him, as he always had.

"Well, nice to see you all remember how to get here on time," Lester drawled in his uninterested tone from his place on the first floor, "except, has anyone seen Quinn this morning?"

"I drove him in," Sarah replied. "He said something about rechecking for surveillance equipment now Johnson's gone."

"Right, well, someone can fill him in later when he does show up. As of now, Mr. Quinn is on desk duty pending anger management counseling and a full psychiatric evaluation. Mr. Temple, you're suspended from fieldwork until the doctors clear you. In the meantime we'll be combining the teams. Any questions? Good, carry on, then."

Connor slumped in his chair as Lester headed back into his office. Of course he'd _known_ he couldn't go out into the field and perform his own stunts while he couldn't walk properly or pick up anything heavier than a cup of tea, but it still smarted hearing he'd be left behind. He enjoyed fieldwork, enjoyed getting to play the action figure on very rare occasion. Besides, with the Abby situation as it stood, he needed something to get him out of his own head for a bit, and there was nothing like chasing down carnivorous dinosaurs to put things in perspective.

But there would be no dinosaur chasing for him—not for at least the six weeks it took for his ribs to heal up so he could carry himself around on crutches. More likely he'd be off the job for the months it took his ankle to heal, and the prospect sapped him of even the small amount of optimism with which he'd started the day.

"So how did the teams work?" Abby asked the room at large, the question catching his attention in spite of himself.

"You didn't have two teams before?" Claudia asked as she walked down from the first floor with a stack of paperwork in her hands. Connor assumed she had an office up there somewhere, maybe in the same place Jenny's had been. Nevertheless she dropped the pile on one of the unoccupied lab desks and sat down behind it.

"There was no Cutter," Abby explained. "Jenny had left. We didn't have enough people to split between us, I guess."

Cutter nodded, not seeming to even pause anymore at the reference to his death. "Well, after Danny, Becker, and Dr. Page joined the ARC, it started getting a bit crowded at the anomaly sites. Danny, as you may well know, is not the type to take orders, so Lester thought it prudent to split us up and divide our resources so no one got burnt out."

"Who's team was I on?" Connor asked, pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"Mine," Cutter confirmed. "You and Claudia and Becker were with me most of the time. Abby and Sarah were with Danny. The whole thing was quite effective, too, as both Becker and Danny have law enforcement backgrounds so they could provide protection, and both you and Sarah could work the locking mechanisms. You and Abby did double up, though, on a number of occasion when your respective expertise would be especially useful."

He glanced at Abby and their eyes met for a long moment before she looked away. Even so, he had seen the same thought in her eyes as he'd had himself: He'd probably switched sides every chance he got, just to be near her.

OOO

Claudia sat at one of the desks of the main atrium, watching the normal goings on in the office. In front of her sat a pile of incident reports and requisition requests about half a metre tall that she needed to sign off on by the end of the day, but she didn't feel like paperwork.

She only yesterday found out that, up until recently, she hadn't existed as she did now. She hadn't had this job or her husband or the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that she might be pregnant. None of that had happened—and yet it had, only because Connor and Abby and Danny had gone and meddled her into existence.

No, paperwork would have to wait.

Directly in front of her, Nick was sat with Connor in front of the Detector, instructing him in low voices about one thing or another. To her right, Abby was filling out her own requisition paperwork regarding amounts and strengths of tranquilizers they needed to stock up on. Sarah was behind her, reading a large tome detailing mythical beasts of South America, but every once in a while Claudia heard her shift and sigh as though restless. Becker, she assumed, was in the armory or the gym, and Danny…no one ever knew where Danny was, so she didn't even question his absence. Nonetheless, everyone seemed to be moving on and going back to work…everyone except her.

As she watched, Abby glanced over at Conner, then quickly averted her gaze before he could notice. Then Connor did the same. Then Abby again. It would have been quite amusing had they both not had identical expressions of defeat on their faces.

Finally, after a good five minutes of this nonsense, Abby stood and walked straight toward Claudia. Claudia's response was, of course, to look away and pretend she'd been doing any of the hundreds of things she was supposed to have done, as opposed to voyeuristically contemplating her coworkers' love lives.

"Claudia," Abby whispered, leaning down so their heads were close together and they wouldn't be overheard. "We've known each other a while now, yeah? I mean, in this reality we have."

"A few years, yes."

Abby nodded, nervously looking around as though they were discussing government secrets. Over her shoulder Claudia saw Connor was watching them none too discreetly. "Right, so if I really needed someone to talk to, I could talk to you?"

"Of course you can."

Again, Abby nodded. "Right. Okay. Is now a good time?"

Claudia immediately stood, trying not to seem too concerned as they walked off toward the break room. On the way past she touched Sarah's shoulder and motioned for her to follow.

"What's up?" Sarah asked as soon as the door was shut.

"Well," Abby started, "I've got this problem."

_Oh god_, Claudia found herself thinking as she fiddled nervously with her wedding band, _she's pregnant, too. What the hell are the men around here going to do with two pregnant women?_

But it was also a huge relief, the idea of having someone else to talk to about it. It was killing her, this thinking but not knowing bit. And what would Nick have to say about her condition? She knew he wanted kids, but the ARC project took up most of their time as it was, what with regular office hours and then anomalies at any given time of the day or night. What would a child do to that? What would that do to their child?

Oh, but Nick would be a wonderful father.

And so would Connor, for that matter, though the picture that brought to mind was both amusing and frightening. The nursery would be dinosaur-themed for certain.

"A problem?" Claudia prompted when Abby didn't explain on her own.

The girl looked incredibly uncomfortable, playing with the short hairs on the back of her neck and then folding her hands in front of her to keep them still. "It's going to sound really weird."

_Okay, so maybe not pregnant?_

Claudia chuckled. "Abby, I've just found out that until you all jumped through that last anomaly, I was a different person."

She looked to Sarah for additional encouragement, and the woman nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "Oh, and I…" she paused, her eyes widening as something occurred to her, "I had sex with Danny last night."

The room fell into a momentary silence as no one seemed able to come up with the correct response. Yes, they had all—barring differences between time-space continuums—noticed the attraction between the two, but it seems a bit unlikely they'd choose that particular night to act on it. Still, now seemed an even odder moment to bring it up. Finally Claudia cocked her head to the side, hiding an amused smile, and said, "Wow. And this is a bad thing?"

"Well, no," Sarah said, seeming to mull it over. "Not exactly. Not unless you count that he's still half in love with the woman who used to be you, who doesn't happen to exist anymore…"

"Come again?"

"Long story; tell you later," Abby whispered in her ear.

"…or the fact that we work together—which hasn't seemed to hurt you two any, but Danny's not exactly Nick or Connor, is he? They're both the marrying type, and Danny's just…"

"Ruggedly handsome?" Abby finished.

"Well, yes! He's incredibly attractive, and I've fancied him for a while now, but he's got all this Jenny Lewis stuff in his head and I don't know if he really fancies me or if he's projecting or if he was thinking of her while we were…So yes. This has the potential of being a very bad thing."

Claudia nodded decisively, trying to regain the point. "So you see, Abby, there's very little at this point that would surprise us."

Abby nodded and took a deep, readying breath. "All right, here goes. I didn't know I was married until last night when I walked into the house I hadn't known I had and saw a photo of myself in a wedding dress."

_Wow. So definitely not pregnant._

Sarah broke the shocked silence first with an unladylike snort. "Stuff the Danny thing. You win."

Claudia couldn't help but agree. "That's it, get your things. We're going out."

Back in the main lab Claudia picked up her handbag and approached her husband. "We're going to the pub," she told him with a peck on the lips. "Ring my mobile if an anomaly opens."

"The pub? At 1 o'clock in the afternoon? I look forward to explaining that one to Lester."

She smiled and leaned closer, her eyes meeting his in a way that would brook no argument. "Let me rephrase: Abby and Connor didn't know until they got home last night _that they were_ _married_. I'm taking the girls to get a drink. Probably several. Call me if _and only if_ there's an emergency."

He cleared his throat and nodded, scratching the back of his neck the way he always did on the rare occasion he was lost for words. "Right. Have fun."

She nodded and kissed him again, then walked past a very confused Connor to where the girls were waiting near the door.


	8. One Missed Chance

_A/N: Been forever, I know. But you've got a super-sized chapter to make up for it. Hope you like it. Please review; it'll make writing the next chapter so much easier. This is me prettily begging. _

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Chapter 8: One Missed Chance

"So you and Danny?"

"So _not_ you and Connor?"

Abby looked away as Claudia came back with two pints, two shots, and what looked like an iced tea. Oddly enough, she put both shots and one of the beers in front of Abby, handed Sarah the other beer, and sat down with her tea.

"Not drinking, Claudia?"

The woman smiled and shook her head. "Someone should stay sober here, and your need seems much greater than mine at the moment."

Abby tapped her first shot with Sarah's beer and drained it in one, letting it burn smoothly down her throat. "Come on, we'll call a cab. Get yourself a beer at least. I feel like a lush with all this alcohol sitting in front of me."

Claudia laughed. "Thank you, no. Every once in a while I like to be on the other side of the blackmail pictures. In the mean time, would you like to start?"

She chased the shot with a long sip of her beer, taking the extra moment to pull things together in her head. Where could she even start when she had no idea what had or had not happened here? It was surreal, sitting here talking to Claudia, whose laugh was so much like Jenny's that it almost felt the same. But it wasn't. Not by a long shot.

She threw back her second shot and sighed. "Okay, so…Connor and I weren't married in our timeline. We weren't even dating."

"Really?" Sarah asked. "But you're so good together. Well, you were, I guess."

Abby shook her head. "Nope, not even one proper date. He told me he loved me once, when we were both pretty sure I was going to die, and then he went back to his girlfriend and never said anything about it again. And I kissed him once, when I found out he did something for my brother just so I wouldn't be angry at the little nitwit. But that was just sort of…a thank-you, I suppose."

"But you do love him, yes?" Claudia asked, and Abby couldn't help but scoff. Did she love Connor? Well wasn't that the question in all this? If she could figure that out, she could probably sort out the rest pretty quick.

But love was huge in her book. It was scary and unknown. She'd had hundreds of infatuations in her short lifetime, but she'd never once told a man she was in love with him and meant it. That implied giving a part of herself to someone else, a part that she might never getting back. It wasn't something she would risk on just anybody.

Did she love Connor? Would she know it if she did?

"Well, I like him—that much I know," she admitted, feeling like a coward for her evasion. "But it's not easy to know what you feel when you find out you're married to your best friend, is it? I mean, sure, I look at all the pictures and think he must be a great husband, but I'm not the girl in that picture and he's not that man. So what I'm feeling when I look at him now—is that how I've felt all along, or am I just reacting to what's expected?"

"And what are you feeling?"

She thought about it, tried to label it. It wasn't so easy as it should have been. She was happy to be home, happy to be back where it was safe and she could count on running water. She was glad to have her flatmate back, though that was on shaky ground at best. And yes, she was confused and unbalanced by this whole alternate timeline business because nothing could be taken for granted now. If suddenly she could come to have lived an entirely different life for the past however many months, what else could have changed?

Was she still herself? Was Connor? Were any of them exactly the same as they'd been three days ago when she'd stepped forward and then backward through time?

But Jenny wasn't asking about all that, was she?

Oh no. Sorry. It was Claudia now.

She sighed, running an idol fingertip around the rim of her glass. "Confused, mostly. Scared. I mean, I never actually thought seriously about what kind of wife I'd be, and now that I am one…I just don't feel like I'm married, you know? I didn't go through all the things a married woman does, like being proposed to and picking out my dress and actually attending my own wedding."

Neither of the other two seemed to know quite what to say to that, so they all just nursed their drinks in silent contemplation. There were some things that a person just couldn't prepare for. The situation Abby found herself in was tantamount, she imagined, to someone having a really intense bender and waking up with a ring on one's finger and a strange man in one's bed—but for her it was worse still because she couldn't just call it a botched job and never see the man again. This was Connor—_her_ Connor. And her Connor couldn't be put off that way.

"How do you do it?" she asked Claudia finally. "You're married. What's that like?"

Claudia smiled widely—proudly, Abby would say. Her whole face lit up with the thought of it, and Abby felt a totally unfamiliar longing in the pit of her stomach to understand that sort of joy.

"Well, I don't know," the woman replied with amusement. "I think it's probably much like living together. We share everything, even when we don't want to. We know more about each other than anyone else does. We get frustrated as hell at the stupidest things. We love each other, even when we don't even like each other. Sound familiar?"

Abby nodded, chuckling under her breath. "It really does."

"See? Only difference is, I actually shag my husband on a regular basis and he always comes back when I kick him out."

"Oh is that all?" Abby laughed into her pint. "Well, then, maybe we are married. I've just been missing the fringe benefits."

They all giggled as the barman brought another round, and it felt good to let some of the tension out of the situation. If she could laugh about all this with the girls, maybe someday she could laugh about it with Connor. It would become just another one of those stories they told around the break room after a boring day of paperwork—like how her brother had bumbled his way into the future, or how Cutter had let himself be bitten by that giant centipede, or how Jenny had almost been eaten by that giant shark… They would get past it.

Eventually.

But in her gut Abby knew she had to figure this out now—now, before she met Connor and screwed it all up again. She wasn't sure what exactly she'd said or did, but the way he'd snapped at her the night before, the way he'd refused to ask for her help that morning even at the expense of his own comfort and vanity—she'd done something, maybe damaged something.

"I don't know what's happening between us," she sighed, sobering, "but part of me is so afraid I'm going to end up losing my best friend. I mean, we're not even really in a row; we're just exceptionally uncomfortable around each other. It's just…how am I supposed to act around someone I'm married to but not sleeping with?"

"So sleep with him."

Abby gaped at Claudia, wondering if the barman had changed her iced tea for something a bit stronger. "Are you off your trolley?"

"No, I agree with Claudia," Sarah cut in. "It might do the two of you good, getting some of that sexual tension out of the way. And you _are_ married, after all. You fancy him, and if parallel serves, he's been arse over elbow for you for at least as long as I've known you."

"Much longer," Claudia interjected. "At least as long as _I've_ known you."

Abby huffed indignantly, sitting back in her chair with her arms folded across her chest. "Couldn't have been longer than that. That was the day me and Connor met, if I'm not mistaken. And I'm sure that's not true. The man had a girlfriend the better part of last year, for heaven's sake. That being the case, he couldn't have been too broken up about me, could he?"

Claudia shook her head, looking suddenly much more serious. "He could. He _was_. Obviously you weren't there when everyone thought you were dead after you got taken by the Mer-Creatures. He couldn't function, Abby. Kept yelling at everyone that we had to keep looking, that we could find you if we just kept looking. He was completely torn up about whatever row you two had had, wishing you hadn't been angry with him just before. It was hard to watch."

Abby looked away, feeling entirely put out at the direction the conversation had taken. Sure, she'd known it had been hard on him, particularly in that moment they'd been hanging off the cliff, but she didn't like hearing it. She especially didn't like thinking he'd declared his love for her out of some sense of obligation or relief.

"He went right back to his girlfriend, though, didn't he?" she pointed out bitterly, remembering Caroline's patronizing little smile as she'd yammered on about makeup.

Claudia and Sarah exchanged a glance that Abby didn't understand, but it looked a bit like surprise. "Did he?" Claudia asked. "That's not quite the way it worked out here."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Abby, as I recall, he didn't go back to that girl he was seeing."

"Why not?"

Claudia looked as though she were questioning Abby's mental stability. "Because he was in love with you, obviously! I mean, he told you so, didn't he? Or was that different as well?"

"He did, but that didn't stop him going back to his girlfriend!" she argued, her back up. "He just sort of…pretended he forgot saying it and went about his life as usual."

Claudia chuckled and sighed. "Oh, well then, your Connor might just be an idiot after all. Never mind."

The thought had crossed Abby's mind at least once a day since that moment, so she wasn't about to argue. It was hard to imagine what would have happened had Connor not feigned amnesia and swept the whole thing under the rug. She supposed they might have actually gotten together, and eventually ended up married with a house and several pet dinosaurs. One chance taken instead of missed, and this world was the result. Hard to wrap her head around.

"So what was the difference?" she asked Claudia, absently swirling the beer around the bottom of her glass. "How did it happen between the two of us?"

Claudia met her desperate gaze with a sympathetic one. "What do you want to know? How'd you get together, or how'd you end up married?"

"Everything," Abby answered, mentally steeling herself. "Tell me everything that's happened."

OOO

"So, would you like to talk about it?"

Connor looked up at the professor, saw his sympathetic expression, and turned away again to press random, ineffectual keys on the ADD.

In reality he wasn't quite sure what he should be doing right now, other than reacquainting himself with his own invention. There were new codes in the programming that bore a striking resemblance to something he'd been designing in his head in the weeks prior to their little jaunt through ancient history, but he hadn't had time to implement them before. And yet here they were, minus the bugs, with his own electronic fingerprint all over them. He wasn't sure he liked that.

And he was tired, and he was irritated. It was bloody frustrating sitting in this wheelchair, which was a good inch shorter than the height he normally sat at the ADD. He couldn't reach up to adjust the screens or make his way to adjust the wiring in the back without the damned wheels getting caught up on cords. And here was Professor Cutter, his own personal ghost, looking at him with those half-amused, pitying eyes.

"Talk about what, exactly?"

"How about the thing that has my wife taking yours to the pub in the middle of a work day."

"The pub? Really? Sounds like a brilliant idea. Let's do that."

Cutter chuckled, resting a hand on his shoulder. Part of Connor wanted to swat it away, the other was just grateful the man was there. "Someone has to stay here and keep Lester happy and occupied. You'll find that a pattern in marriage. All the ugly jobs, more often than not, tend to fall on us as the husbands."

Connor growled under his breath. Did everyone have to keep throwing those words about? _Husband_. _Wife_. _Marriage_. He was getting damn well bloody tired of people telling him who he was now. "I'm not a husband, Professor. I never was."

"So I've heard. Are you planning to sit around moping or are you going to do something about that?"

The door of the atrium banged open at an opportune time to save him the need of answering, announcing Danny's entrance with theatrical efficacy.

"Where have you been?" Cutter asked him without heat. "Lester's been asking after you about once an hour since we got in this morning."

Danny didn't seem at all perturbed but looked around furtively as though the man in question would magically appear. "Sorry, mate. Things to do. Had to get reacquainted with the schematics of the place. Connor, did you notice they've added a whole new set of laboratories on the east wing? Prehistoric illness research or some odd thing. And Abby's greenhouse has been rebuilt, or possibly it was never destroyed. Can't really be sure, can I?"

Connor nodded vaguely, but his mind was on what Cutter had asked him. What, he wondered, did the man expect him to do? Club her over the head and drag her back home. Even if they found an anomaly to an era where that was socially acceptable, Abby would wipe the floor with him and then eat crumpets over his grave.

"What's wrong with him?"

He looked up at Danny's confused, slightly concerned expression and tried to school his features into something resembling calm. "Nothing. I'm fine. What was that you were saying about illnesses?"

Danny didn't answer, looking instead to Cutter, and Connor turned again to the irritatingly silent ADD. Where was a good creature incursion when one needed it? Maybe then everyone else would go off and leave him to think in peace.

"Our dear Mr. Temple finds himself very suddenly married," Cutter explained, and Connor shot him an irritated glare.

"You're kidding!" Danny cried as Connor bowed his head to avoid eye contact. "Who's the lucky bird?"

"Abby," he replied sullenly. "And I don't want to talk about it."

But, of course, Danny wasn't one to leave things be, and Connor knew that. He just hoped—futilely, as it turned out—that the man would take him at his word and let it alone. At least until he himself could figure things out a bit.

"What, did you get married in the Cretaceous and forget to tell me?"

"No, not exactly."

"Alternate timeline," Cutter explained, sympathy bleeding into his voice. "As far as any of us knows, Abby and Connor have been married for almost eight months now. My wife has just informed me that you lot didn't know that."

Again with the damn M-word. They really were doing it just to torture him, he was sure.

"Can we all just…pick a new topic? Please? That would be brilliant."

"Well, why aren't you ecstatic, mate?" Danny asked. "You've fancied that girl for ages, so what's the problem?"

"No problem. None at all. I'm chuffed to bits."

Danny snorted, and the sound chaffed at his already raw nerves. "That's rubbish. What's going on? Is marriage not all it's cracked up to be?"

"Well I haven't started throwing things yet, if that's any indication."

It was the wrong thing to say. If the silence that met him wasn't warning enough, being hauled up by his shirt the next moment said it loud and clear.

"Do you really want to take the piss about that?" Danny said in a tone so deadly calm Connor could imagine how intimidating he must have been as a detective. "Cause I'm pretty sure you don't."

Before Connor had time to say anything, Cutter had a restraining hand on Danny's shoulder, talking low in the man's ear in urgent, serious tones. A moment later, Connor was released back into his wheelchair, albeit forcefully. The short fall jarred his ribs, knocking the breath out of him.

"Sorry," Danny bit out, running a hand over his face as he paced a few steps away and then back. Connor saw him take a two deep breaths and visibly shake himself before he looked up again. "Really, I'm sorry Connor," he repeated, sounding genuinely contrite. "I shouldn't have lost my temper. It's been a hard couple of days, that's all."

"It has," Connor agreed, holding his side where his ribs ached acutely. "We're all a bit tense, aren't we?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah."

"So how did Abby react?" Cutter cut in, and Connor felt the tension in his shoulders redouble. He wasn't sure why the man was pushing this so hard, why he couldn't seem to leave Connor to wallow and brood in his own time, but it seemed the only way to stop it would be to give the man what he wanted.

"Not well. She closeted herself on the first floor for a good half hour before I convinced her to come down and take some tea, and even then I couldn't get any kind of reaction out of her. She was just sort of…numb about it, said she didn't want to deal with it right now."

She didn't want to deal with him, with them, with the possibility that they could be anything but friends. He was good old dependable Connor. Always there to vent on when she was angry; always there to charm when she needed a favour. Never mind that he'd do just about anything to make her smile, or the fact that she knew damn well how much he cared about her. She didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to consider what her other self had actually seen in him to make things different.

He might as well still be living at Lester's.

"Anyway, I ended up snapping at her for something stupid and now we're not really speaking—which is quite inconvenient, by the way, since I've gone and injured myself. I need her help to do just about everything—eat, dress, get to work. I still haven't figured out how I'm supposed to take a bath."

"Oh come on," Danny chuckled, "you're both adults, aren't you?" He paused to consider. "Right, well, Abby is an adult anyway, and you can pretend for ten minutes, right? So it shouldn't be that big an issue for her to help you into and out of a bath. Just pretend she's the nurse."

Connor considered that, and all that happened was his mind went all sorts of places it shouldn't, featuring Abby in a nurse's uniform.

Something of it must have shown on his face because Danny laughed outright and Cutter cleared his throat loudly, trying to suppress a smile. "Wait, scratch that," Danny amended. "Don't pretend she's the nurse."

Even Connor chuckled at that, ducking his head until his ears stopped glowing.

"Look, if you need a place to stay for a while," Danny offered, "my flat has a couch. There's a lift so the chair won't be a problem."

It was a kind offer, but it seemed like the coward's way out. And contrary to popular belief, Connor didn't fancy himself a coward. Besides, the thought of voluntarily leaving her made him feel downright nauseated.

"Thank you, but no. I think I need to stay. If I leave nothing will be resolved on."

Danny nodded in silent agreement. Cutter seemed pleased with his answer, and the accompanying warmth of pride that spread through him was both familiar and grounding. Some things really never did change.

As if to demonstrate, Lester's disinterested monotone broke through the fallen silence, "Sorry to interrupt your social gathering here, but I had thought this was a place of business. Is there a reason why half my staff seems to have vanished?"

Connor ducked his head, pretending to be entirely enthralled with a series of code on one of the screens of the ADD. Danny made a hurried exit without explanation, which left Cutter to come up with a reasonable-sounding lie.

"They had to go out for a bit," he answered simply and without apparent intention of continuing. Connor had to cough roughly to cover his chuckle.

"Out?" Lester prompted.

"Yes, out. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are some very important fossilized droppings to be examined in my office."

This time Connor did laugh outright, drawing Lester's gaze just as Cutter executed his retreat.

"I don't supposed it would do me much good to ask you?" Lester sighed, staring Connor down until the smile slid off his face.

"No, sir."

Rolling his eyes, Lester strode impatiently back to his office, leaving a very relieved Connor to sit and meditate on the one thing he couldn't seem to get out of his head for more than five minutes.

This Abby problem wasn't going to go away on its own, as much as he might want it to. What he really needed to do, he supposed, was to figure out how he'd tricked Abby into marrying him in the first place. He wasn't a bad chap, by any means, but he wasn't the man of action type that Stephen had been. Being brilliant hadn't seemed to get him far with the ladies by his experience, so it was beyond him how he'd managed to land a lifetime with the most amazing woman he'd ever met.

Mind control, maybe?

Blackmail? It had well enough worked getting him into her flat.

Alien abduction?

No, he was sure he must have convinced her somehow to give him a chance, and if he'd done it once, there had to be a way to do it again. He just had to find out how.


	9. Speaking of Selfdelusion

_A/N: I'm not sure if this chapter is ready yet (since I haven't proofread it for a third time) but, I'm having a __**REALLY BAD DAY**__. A bad week actually. Well, if you want to get technical, it's been a really bad effing year, and today I'm feeling it. So….I'm watching Alice for the hundredth time and posting a chapter in hopes of getting a ton of really good (or at least constructive) reviews. _

_Downside to this? If I only get three reviews—again—I might just get so depressed that I send a G-Rex to kill the whole lot of them and then nobody gets to read the Conby-centric next chapter I have planned. Yes, that's blackmail, but have I mentioned the __**really bad**__ mood I'm in? Come on, you guys know you love me. You don't want to see me go apeshit on these lovely, lovely characters._

_Oh, and as always, I hope you enjoy._

* * *

Chapter 9: Speaking of Self-delusion

Almost two hours later saw the women sitting at the exact same table in the corner of the local. Foot traffic around them had gotten reasonably heavier, being that it was still only just after three in the afternoon. An older gentleman had taken up residence briefly at the table nearest them but had left soon afterward when they'd gotten too loud, throwing them angry glances as he was as though they'd interrupted some daily ritual.

In that almost two hours, the drinks had come full and gone away empty with an economy of service that had left the table in front of them empty on only rare occasion. The women had laughed uproariously and spoken in soft, serious tones; they'd joked and they'd argued. They'd even shed tears a time or two. And all the while Abby's expression had been consistently one of surprise, disbelief, and a touch of longing Sarah doubted the girl knew showed through.

Now, though, through her laughter, Abby's expression was one of absolute incredulity.

"No way."

"I'm afraid so."

"I wouldn't!"

"You did. You even wore a costume."

"No! You guys are winding me up."

Sarah felt a small stab of sympathy for her, buried deep under many layers of amusement. "We never did get out of you what it was, but you said Connor made you keep it. You could probably find it somewhere in your wardrobe."

Abby buried her face in her hands, giggling unrestrainedly. "Guys! Stop playing around and tell me the truth—I really went to a science fiction convention?"

Claudia looked to be trying and failing miserably to keep a straight face. "Yes, Abby, you really did."

"Well that's it then," Abby sighed, slamming back her latest shot. "I _must_ have loved the bastard."

Sarah rolled her eyes and took another sip of what had to be her fourth beer, though she hadn't been keeping close track. By now she was at the point of being sloshed enough to have loosened her inhibitions but still sober enough that she was sure she'd still remember everything the next morning. Abby, she thought, was probably a little further gone than she was, seeing as the girl was of a smaller stature and had taken more shots.

And yet, Sarah lamented silently, still Abby hadn't quite given up the fight.

_Of course_ she had loved Connor. She _still_ loved him, whatever timeline they happened to be in—anyone could see that. She talked about him with exasperation one moment and incredible fondness the next, the same way one talks about a cherished puppy who eats your slippers but is too adorable to stay cross with. More than that, even allowing for the stress of the current situation, the girl seemed to be spending exorbitant amounts of time and energy trying to figure out what Connor was thinking and feeling, instead of just figuring out her own mind and letting the rest fall where it may.

"Tell me again," Sarah found herself saying, not really caring if it was a good idea or not, "why is it you're not in love with Connor?"

Abby gave her a queer look, but then the girl's expression turned thoughtful, a little confused. Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling and her lips pursed in contemplation. "Is that a trick question?"

"Nope. Completely serious."

Abby was silent a long moment, rocking slightly in her chair in a way that made her look much younger than she was. "He likes science fiction movies," she said finally, "and he takes up my entire lounge playing these stupid video games all the time. He spouts off these random bits of information about things that I'll never care about, and then he looks at me like I'm crazy when I mix up the Green Goblin and the Green Lantern.

"And then he'll do the most random, stupidly beautiful little things like folding my laundry instead of throwing it back in the laundry basket, or buying me a new pair of slippers because he saw the old ones had holes in the toes. And he gives me these looks like he wants to say something, but then he never actually says anything! We just keep running round each other, the pair of us, so what's the point in being in love with the man?"

By the end she was more shouting than talking, making grand, unfocused arm movements that reminded Sarah so much of Connor that she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to say it. It wasn't the time, and she imagined Abby definitely wasn't in the mood.

"Tell me," Abby sighed, seeming to come back to herself a bit, "what's the point, eh? I step forward and he's absolutely oblivious, or he steps forward and I run like hell. It'll never be sorted between us, and I can't for the life of me understand how the other pair of us did it. I know you told me how it happened, but I still can't really imagine it. I haven't done it, so I can't see it, yeah? I just…" she took a deep breath and huffed it out, thudding her drink on the table with a hollow finality. "Bugger."

Sarah looked at Claudia and saw the same wariness in the woman's expression, knew she was thinking the same thing: this didn't seem to be helping anything.

"Abby, sweetheart, I think it's time to get you home," Claudia said gently, brushing the hair back from the girl's temple the way a mother would to her child. "I think you've had enough."

"Didn't help," Abby grumbled, echoing Sarah's thought. "I'm just as confused now as I was this morning, only now I've got the whole story—or as much of it as we got through—and I get to be confused about that as well."

"Maybe it'll be clearer in the morning," Sarah put in, taking one of Abby's arm to help her up.

But Abby shrugged it off, stumbling a little on her feet but remaining upright. "No, that's all right. I can stay and be good. Sarah, you didn't get to talk at all about this thing between you and Danny. Turnabout and all that; I can stay and listen."

"Doesn't matter. It's not important."

"It is!" Abby insisted, her wide gesture throwing her slightly off balance so Sarah had to steady her again. "I'm being a horrible friend, yapping on about myself. No, you should talk, and I'll just sit here and listen. And hand out brilliant advice. If there's one thing I can give advice on…well, men's not it, but I can still listen."

Sarah couldn't help but laugh, watching the girl still swaying on her feet without seeming to realize it. "Abby, dear, I really appreciate the thought, but—"

"Fine," Abby cut in, "I'll take a cab, yeah? That way you can sit here and talk about Danny while I go home and sleep this off."

"Are you sure? I don't mind leaving."

"No! No, I'll be absolutely fine. But you have to promise me you'll fill me in tomorrow. I don't want to miss out on all the sordid details."

Sarah nodded obligingly and watched Abby stroll out of the pub, brushing her fingertips against the wall for balance.

"Do you think she'll be all right?" she asked Claudia.

"Three in the afternoon, she'll be fine. Cabby will pick her up in no time."

"No, I know that," she nodded. "I mean, with the rest of it. We did lay a whole mess on her."

Claudia shrugged and sighed. "I think so. You know she's in love with him, yes?"

"Oh yes."

"Well that's the most important thing, then. Sooner or later she'll figure it out, and then all that's left is for us to push them in a small room together and wedge a chair under the door handle."

Sarah chuckled. That was about the best they could hope for at that moment, she thought. She herself hadn't known the two as anything but a couple deeply in love. She'd gone to their wedding, helped Abby with the last-minute details of the event. It was strange witnessing the shyness and self-delusion that had apparently been so prevalent in their early days.

"So, what's going on with you and Danny?"

_Speaking of self-delusion._

She took a long drink of her beer before answering, searching for the right words. "We have a chemistry," she answered at length. "It's been there for a while—don't know if you noticed—"

"I did indeed."

"Right," she continued, tapping a nervous finger against the wooden tabletop, "so there's chemistry. He's attractive and funny and…unpredictable, which is a nice change from what I'm used to. And before this whole drama began, he used to smile at me in that infuriatingly charming way of his." She smiled, thinking of the mischievous look in his eyes when he had unleashed that grin on her. "You know the one I'm talking about. The one that reminds you of a eighteen-year-old sneaking out of a girl's dormitory."

Claudia laughed and nodded her on.

"We weren't together, but I thought maybe we were heading there. Once everything calmed down with Helen and Christine Johnson and everything, I thought maybe I'd ask him out for a beer, test the waters." She sighed, nipping her bottom lip between her teeth. "And then he goes and starts talking about other worlds and this Jenny Lewis character."

"Who was the other me, I take it?" Claudia asked, looking not entirely comfortable with the thought.

Sarah nodded. "Right, and apparently he fancied her a great deal before she left the ARC. But then he also talked a great deal about not being in love with her and how she was probably better off being you. I don't really understand it all, but he seems to be pretty conflicted about the whole thing."

Claudia nodded obligingly, but Sarah could tell she still didn't really understand. It was too hard, in one short conversation, to really grasp the entirety of a completely impossible situation. She herself could attest to that.

"So how exactly did all this conclude with the two of you in bed together?"

"I don't know!" And she really wasn't sure. It had all happened so fast—a flash fire encounter that had turned into a slow sort of burn. Her cheeks warmed and gooseflesh stood up on her arms just thinking about it. "I really don't. One minute he was telling me it was late and I should go home, and the next he was telling me we had a…a thing, back in his reality. A flirtation, I guess. Sounded like things hadn't changed much with us, between the realities. And then he kissed me and it all just…"

Exploded. That was the word. The two of them had just spontaneously combusted together, and for her it had been like the first sunny day after a very cold winter. But for Danny…

"And then this morning, I can't even describe how stupid I felt waking up to him trying to untangle himself." She shook her head, taking an unnecessarily long swig of her beer as the mortification of the moment swept through her. "He played it off, of course—said he needed to shower for work but hadn't wanted to wake me—but he looked _guilty_ as he did it. Like he regretted the whole thing."

"I'm sure that's not true," Claudia soothed, a tight, conciliatory smile on her lips. "If parallels serve, he's not a rake, nor is he an idiot. What he is, is a jammy bastard if I ever saw one, and I'm sure he'll figure that out soon enough if he hasn't already."

Sarah sighed, blinking back tears. "I'm not used to being used, and I've got to say, it's a shite feeling. And the worst thing is, I don't think he even meant it that way. It all just happened so fast, and I guess we were both looking for something. I mean, it takes two, right? And neither of us were complaining last night, but now it looks like he's looking for an out while all I can think about is how fantastic it felt when he was nibbling my earlobe.

"I mean, this is Danny so I wasn't exactly expecting roses and moonlit serenades, but I wasn't expecting he'd be embarrassed either."

"He's not," Claudia argued. "I'm sure he's not. And you shouldn't be either—there's nothing for you to be embarrassed about. If he wants to play it all off like it didn't happen, then he really is an halfwit and he doesn't deserve you, but as it stands you can't say for sure if he was trying to extricate himself from the situation or just the bed. Maybe he just really needed to use the toilet."

Sarah snorted. "I'd love to think that. I really would."

"So talk to him. Ask him what he's thinking because if you try to sort it out yourself you'll just come up with the worst possible scenario, one that won't do justice to either of you. And what he says can't be any worse than that, can it?"

She wanted to believe that, she really did. But Claudia hadn't been there to see the look in Danny's eyes—the one that said he was in over his head. No, _worse_, the one that said he was sorry.

"Talk to him," Claudia pressed, laying a hand over hers on the table. "The worst he can say is what you're already thinking. If he needs time, or if he wants to forget it, then it's your choice whether to allow him that. But either way you'll be on a level playing field."

Sarah nodded, worrying her lip between her teeth again. If Danny wanted to slow down—or come to a screeching halt—on this whole thing between them, could she do that? Could she see him every day with the thoughts and memories inside her head, knowing he regretted them?

She'd done it before. Casual dating and casual sex were not unknown concepts to her; she was an adult, after all. And though, it was hard to imagine not feeling mortified by his very existence in the world, having been the recipient of that one shamefaced expression, she had enough practice hiding her emotions that she could be assured he'd never know it.

"You're right," she said resolutely, draining what was left of her beer and picking up her jacket. "Can you drive me back to the ARC?"

Claudia's expression turned unsure. "Maybe you should wait until you're a little more level-headed. Besides, if Lester finds you've been drinking we're all liable to get sacked."

"I won't run into him, then."

Claudia left to settle the bill, and when she came back her expression was one of both reluctance and understanding. "You'll wait in the car park," she said definitively, "and I'll find Danny for you. If Lester asks tomorrow, Abby wasn't feeling well and you drove her home. As far as you know, I was somewhere around the ARC the whole day, can't imagine how he kept missing me. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Sarah chuckled as they headed to the car. Sometimes she could swear the woman should be in PR.

OOOOO

Danny Quinn was, by all accounts, a man who feared very little in this life. He'd survived the loss of his brother while he'd been away at school and the subsequent years of guilt for not being around to keep him safe. He'd survived his stint as a copper—the months of physical and mental training in the beginning; the years of being a rookie gopher; the years of being a veteran in the field. He'd even survived being chased down by a G-Rex and traipsing through the burning deserts of prehistoric Earth.

Danny Quinn was not a man to run and hide from anything.

So why, he asked himself for the hundredth time, was he spelunking through the ARC's unseen innards when he knew good and well there was no leftover surveillance equipment and no points of entry he hadn't fortified?

He refused to speak the answer to his own query, but deep down he knew what it was: He was hiding.

And from a woman, no less. Well, two to be exact. Or maybe three. Or two and the memory of a third. He hated all this quasi-scientific rubbish.

But it wasn't that he was afraid of them, he reasoned as he detached the line so he could pull himself into a shaft that led, he knew intrinsically, to the west end of the first floor. The area on the other end of the compound from Claudia's office and Sarah's workstation. He hadn't seen them earlier in the atrium, but he wasn't taking any chances.

It wasn't fear that had him hiding—and yes, he admitted reluctantly, he was hiding. It was that he had no idea what he was supposed to say to them. The night before with Sarah had been…incredible seemed a pale description, and yet he'd gone to sleep and woken up with another woman's face in his head. He wasn't particularly comfortable with the possibility, but by definition that probably made him about twelve translations of _arsehole_.

And she'd seen it, he was sure. She'd opened her eyes and looked at his face, and she'd _known_ what he'd been thinking and who he'd been thinking about. Her eyes had turned uncertain, and she'd sort of closed in on herself. It wasn't something he was used to seeing from her, and he didn't like having caused it.

So here he was, wandering through the ARC's innards instead of filling out the mountain of paperwork from that last mission or getting on with that psych evaluation Cutter had texted him about. Come to think of it, he'd probably have been running the same stalling tactics even without the intra-office complications.

Somewhere two storeys above the rec room, he felt the phone in his pocket start to vibrate, the sound echoing abrasive through the metallic shaft. The screen read Jenny's number, but the name on the display read _Claudia_, and the strangeness of it had him answering without thought of how he was actually trying to avoid her.

"Where are you?" she asked in place of a greeting, her voice soft but demanding.

"Oh, you know, here and there," he replied evasively. "What can I do you for?"

"You can tell me where you are, to start," she persisted, and in the background he could hear the strong, steady tapping of her heels on the ARC's floor. "And then you can stay there for more than five seconds until I can get there. We need to talk."

Didn't sound at all appealing, given the anger in her tone.

"Sorry, dear, bad reception. Didn't catch that last part. If I lose you I'll ring you back in a few."

"Oh yes, I'm sure," she huffed. "Hold on a moment." The tip-tap of her heels paused, and the phone went silent save a familiar pulsing sound. "Do me a favor. Move about three metres to the west."

The order smacked of a trap, but he was too shocked not to comply. Exactly three metres forward, and he looked down through a ventilation grate at a very perturbed Claudia.

Swinging the grate open he dropped down beside her. "How the hell did you do that?" he asked, and then he noticed the handheld in her hands.

"Connor had nothing to do with it," she said with a mischievous little smile.

He looked down again at his phone and groaned. Great. Next time he'd leave it in his locker.

"All right, you have me here. What did you need?"

"Well first of all…" She stepped forward, reached up, and before he thought to avoid it, smacked him sharply across the back of the head.

"Oi!"

"That's for being an idiot," she scolded.

"What'd I—"

"And second of all, Sarah needs to talk to you out in the car park."

That shut him up right quick. The two people he wanted least to see, and they were tag-teaming him. Lovely. "I'm busy."

"Rubbish. You've been suspended, in case you hadn't heard, so the only thing you should be busy with is paperwork. And since the ventilation shafts seem a bit cramped for that—"

"Yes, yes, all right," he grumbled, still rubbing the back of his head. "What do you suggest I say to her?"

"Mainly that you're an idiot," she sighed, straightening her blouse primly. "And then…well, the truth would be in your best interest. I don't know exactly what that truth is, but she deserves to hear it from you."

"And if I can't explain it? If I can't even understand it myself?"

She looked away, crossing her arms over her chest uncomfortably. "Look, I've heard some things about your other timeline and who I was in it. I'm not going to tell you that I'm not that other person because I don't know who she was. And I am sorry for whatever you lost in coming here and finding me instead, but it is what it is. I have a wonderful life here, and it has nothing to do with this Jenny Lewis person."

"I know that—"

"And you can have a life here too," she continued, undeterred. "I'm not saying you have to forget her or what she meant to you, but please don't let something so impossibly in the past stand in the way of what could be a real future."

He looked at her, really looked at her then: brown hair several shades lighter than it should have been; light, almost non-existent makeup; a tan, fitted suit that seemed to correspond so well with her softer features and her less potent personality. Standing side by side, the two women might have been mistaken for strangers if one didn't look closely.

"I don't want to," he told her. "And believe it or not, I'm not trying to mess Sarah around. I just…my head not on straight quite yet, if you get my meaning."

She smiled sympathetically, bobbing her head once in silent assent. "Tell her that. It's as good a place as any to start."

* * *

_A/N: Remember my warning—I have a G-Rex standing by. Just imagine Andrew-Lee Potts looking up at you with those beautiful brown eyes, telling you he doesn't want to be eaten. His fate is in _your_ hands. _


	10. Author's Prerogative

Chapter 10: Author's Prerogative

_***Somewhere deep in the hallowed halls of the ARC***_

"Hey Danny! Hey Claudia! Lovely afternoon, isn't it?"

"Sarah? What are you doing here? I told you to wait by the car."

"Not sure, really. Angel said I needed to be here, something about not getting enough reviews."

"Angel? Angel who?"

"Oh, you know Angel. She's the author—the lovely woman who writes all our scripts."

"Oh, that Angel! What do you mean, not enough reviews? Don't these people know how awesome she is? Bloody hell!"

"Hey guys, what's going on?"

"Connor? Nick? I thought you were in the atrium adjusting the ADD."

"We were, but Angel said she had something to show us. Hey, did you know that ADD also stands for Attention Deficit Disorder? Pretty cool, eh?"

"Yeah, Conn, just brilliant."

"Abby? I thought you were at home, drunk off your arse."

"Cabby dropped me off here, don't know why. What's everyone doing standing around here anyway?"

"Angel wants to show us something, apparently, because she didn't get enough reviews."

"Are the readers off their trolleys? We are _bloody_ _interesting_ characters, if I do say so myself. I mean, I make a hilarious drunk, and Conn here is mighty tasty in just about any scene you put him in."

"Thank you! Jeez, now she says it!"

"Yes, it is about time. Now maybe you both can go off and have many quirky but adorable little babies with which we can torture Lester."

"Ha ha ha. You're on."

"Okay, so Angel didn't get enough reviews…what happens now?"

…

"Hey, does anyone else hear that?"

_Thump!_

_Thump!_

_Thump!_

_Crash!_

"Oh, bugger."

The End

_A/N: Muah, ha, ha! Okay, okay, I've had my fun. Click the next button to get your REAL update. ;-)_


	11. Confessions

_A/N: Just want to say a huge THANK YOU! to everyone who reviewed for the last chapter in order to cheer me up and save ALP from a horrific, G-Rex death. Much appreciated. And had I known that such a threat would produce such fabulous results, maybe I would have done so much, much earlier. Love you guys! Hope you enjoy—you totally deserve it._

Chapter 11: Confessions

Welsh legend tells of a mythical creature called an Afanc—a carnivorous marine predator most often described as a giant frog with claws on all of it limbs—that so fiercely terrorized the people of some untold village that they employed a beautiful woman to come trick the fearsome creature into falling asleep on her lap, which inevitably led to its downfall and destruction.

This, Cutter was quite sure, was pure and utter foolishness. Nonetheless, he was flipping through an article regarding the origins of said legend when a tap on his open office door had him looking up into his wife's beautiful brown eyes.

"Well hello there," he smiled, tossing the outlandish and unhelpful article in the trash bin. "How was…" He cleared his through and glanced out the door for any eavesdroppers. ""How is everything?"

"As well as it can be," she replied vaguely, her mouth set in a half-hearted, careworn smile as she leaned a hip against the desk next to him. "Long road ahead, I think. By the way," she narrowed her eyes meaningfully, "Abby's gone home with the flu, Sarah's taking care of her, and I've been running around this place like a mad-woman, in case anyone asks."

"Of course you have."

"Did he ask?"

"I told him you'd all gone out," he replied. "He didn't seem terribly impressed, so feel free to embellish as you like."

She chuckled wearily, running the fingers of one hand through his longish blond hair and down the side of his face. Leaning down, she kissed him long and slow.

"What was that for?" he asked when she broke away and returned to her perch on his desk. He wasn't complaining, by any means, but there was something sad about the kiss, about her whole manner. Something like longing, or maybe regret.

"I love you so much," she replied simply, chuckling again to herself. "I just…I can't imagine what it would be like to wake up one day and not know that."

_Ah_, he thought, finally understanding the direction of things now. She was thinking of her other self—the one who supposedly hadn't known him. Perhaps she had found out more from Abby, or maybe she'd been thinking on it with whatever they'd been talking through regarding Abby and Connor. Maybe she'd just been thinking on it, period.

With a knowing, sympathetic smile, he pulled her into his lap and held her there, her head resting in the crook of his neck. He couldn't imagine it either, the things Connor and Abby had told him about himself in this illusive other time—how he'd come through an anomaly into a world without Claudia Brown. Claudia Cutter. It was more than painful to think on; it was impossible. To live in any place where he couldn't put his arms around this woman and tell her every thought in his head and every desire of his heart—that would be hell if there ever was such a place.

"It's never going to happen," he reassured her, kissing away the tears that had begun trickling down her cheeks. "You and me, we're set in stone. Whatever else changes, we're set in stone."

Inexplicably, this made her tears fall harder, and whether they were the good or the bad kind he didn't know. He just kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair, whispering over and over again that he would always, always love her.

OOO

Out in the car park, it didn't take Danny more than a few minutes to find Sarah. Claudia had said she'd be at her own car, and as she'd driven him in that morning he knew exactly where to look. He would have better liked not knowing, which would have allowed him another minute or two to think about what he was supposed to say when he found her, but cursed as he was with an excellent memory and not cowardly enough to feign a bad one, he hadn't planned past, "Hello, love, fancy a chat?" before he caught sight of her.

She was laid out atop the bonnet of her car, her head resting back against the windscreen, eyes closed. For a moment—just a moment—he stood at a distance to watch her. She looked asleep in all ways but the irregular tapping of the fingers on her right hand against her stomach. Her face was almost completely relaxed but for the worry lines stretched across her brow. She was beautiful—but then she always had been. Attraction had never been their problem.

"Sarah," he called quietly, and the fingers on her right hand paused, then rested flat against her stomach. "Claudia said you wanted to see me."

"I wanted to talk," she corrected, taking a deep breath through her nose before opening her eyes. "Or rather, we need to talk." Abruptly she sat up, looking around as though she'd forgotten where she was. "I really hate when people say that, don't you? Makes it sound like you're being called into the headmaster's office or something." She sighed again, still not looking at him. "Claudia took me to the pub; I think I'm still pretty well gone."

"I can see that."

The withering look she threw him was more cute than fearsome. "You know, you're not earning yourself any points standing there smirking at me."

He tried to wipe the smile off his face and, for the most part, succeeded. "All right. Totally sober. Wait, sorry, bad choice of words." Clearing his throat, he straightened up with his hands folded neatly behind his back. "Okay, here I am, totally serious, ready to talk."

By the end he could see her biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

"Well this is a poor beginning, isn't it?" she said with an incredulous shake of her head. "I come here to ask what the hell is going on inside that head of yours, and here I come to find out there's no point. Puzzle solved: your head is empty."

"Oh, come on now, you wouldn't like me nearly so much if that were the case."

He saw her stop herself mid-laugh, frozen in a moment of introspection. Slowly the smile faded from her face until her expression was one of self-directed dissatisfaction, and sense of unease, of foreboding began to build in Danny's gut. Things were about to turn against him.

"You're right about that," she said finally, glancing around the car park as though looking for something else to focus on. "I do like you. I mean, that's probably pretty obvious by now, isn't it? I don't normally jump into bed with men who make my stomach turn, do I?"

"Course you don't," he whispered, not really making an effort to be heard. Better to let her get it all out in one go, and anything he said just then would probably get turned around anyway.

"Yes, Danny, I like you a lot," she admitted with a look of defiance, "and as you said last night, you and I have a chemistry, but I'm not some daft schoolgirl who's going to chase around after you."

"I don't think you—"

"I'm a grown woman, damn it, and this isn't my first relationship…or whatever this is. Anyway, I'm not going to make things difficult if you want to just forget about last night, so you can stop avoiding me."

"I wasn't—"

Her withering look was a little more affective this time. "And you can stop acting like you don't know what I'm talking about because you barely spoke a word to me this morning, and then after we got in you just disappeared. I'll bet Claudia had to track your mobile just to find you."

He looked away silently, and the shame of it burned through him.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Thought so. God, you couldn't just say it was a mistake, could you? Because that at least I could've understood. No, you had to go and act like nothing happened. Like maybe I dreamed up the whole bloody thing."

"Fine, I'm not man of the year, I admit it," he snapped, crossing his arms defensively across his chest as he leaned against the car next to hers. "And if I seem a bit out of my head…well, that's probably because I am. Sorry. I am what I am, and right now I'm a train wreck. Beg pardon, but I think I have a pretty good excuse."

"Look, I'm not…I didn't ask you here to make you feel guilty. That wasn't the point of this." She sighed deeply and swiped a hand through her hair, mussing it unintentionally. "Damn it, I shouldn't have done this drunk."

It wasn't, he imagined, the best moment to agree with her.

"Okay," she said, visibly reorienting herself, "what I came here to say is that it's okay."

He stood very still, watching her carefully for a sign she was going to start berating him again. "It's okay?"

"That you regret last night," she clarified. "I don't blame you, okay? It doesn't have to be a—"

"Wait, hold on," he interrupted, "who said I regret us sleeping together?"

She pulled a face. "Well you did, didn't you? With your avoiding me and your not talking to me and your 'I'm a train wreck' speech?"

He chuckled. "None of that it because I regret being with you. Sarah, last night was amazing, and if I can manage to keep myself sane, I'd like to have many, many similar experiences in the future. Especially that thing you do with your tongue"

For a moment she looked completely dumbfounded, caught halfway between embarrassment and disbelief. "But then—well, what about—" She scrunched her face and rubbed her temples vigorously. "God, I really shouldn't have done this drunk."

"I'm an idiot," he laughed, smoothing down her hair and leaving his hand against her neck, "and you might be a touch daft yourself."

"You're trying to give me a headache, aren't you?"

He kissed her then—couldn't help himself. She tasted strong and sour like beer with just a hint of tequila underneath, and he didn't care in the least. Snapshots of the night before flickered across his mind in rapid succession, clouding his mind with heady anticipation.

She pulled away first, eyes half-shuttered and breath ragged. "We have to stop," she panted, though the way her fingers tugged at his hair spoke the opposite. "We're on the bonnet of my car in the middle of the office car park."

"Don't care."

She laughed into his mouth. "We could get sacked."

"Yes, we could."

"It would make Lester's day," she teased.

That pulled him up short. "You're right," he sighed, resting back. "We should get out of here."

Again she laughed, closing her eyes for one deep breath before pushing herself up and to her feet. "Agreed, but we _will_ talk more about this when I'm sober. I'd really like to know why you were avoiding me and why I'm a touch daft."

"All in good time, love. All in good time."

OOO

At the end of the day, Connor got a ride back to his place with Claudia in Abby's car, while Cutter followed behind. She'd said Abby had caught a cab home after the pub, and that she wasn't sure what kind of mood Abby would be in when he got there because the pub hadn't gone exactly to plan in cheering her up. Connor just hoped she hadn't holed herself up in her room again.

Their room, he remembered. But it was wasn't anymore.

But when they pulled up to the house, there she was sitting on the porch swing.

Cutter helped him into the damnable wheelchair while Claudia went to say hello to Abby before they drove off toward their own happy, drama-free little home. Connor envied them.

Abby was swaying lazily on the porch swing when Connor rolled up to the steps, staring up at the clouds and looking for all the world like she was pleasantly sloshed. She had one elbow resting on the back of the swing, her fingers playing idly with the short ends of her hair. Her feet were bare, one leg propped on the porch railing so she could push herself forward and back, forward and back. With the dying sun shining pinkish-orange on her face, all he could think was that he'd gladly come home to her every day for the rest of his life.

"Have a nice time with the girls?" he asked, using the railing for leverage as he hopped up the stairs on his one good leg. She paused the swing so he could get on, and he sat down next to her with his gaze fixed on those same wandering clouds.

"I did. We had a nice long chat, the three of us. Tried to sort out what I'm supposed to do, now I'm living someone else's life."

He sighed, the tightness in his chest deepening. Of course she'd look at it that way, distance herself completely from the situation. It was someone else who'd lived in that house. Someone else who'd married him…or rather, someone _who wasn't really_ _her_ had married someone _who wasn't really him_. Couldn't be there was a reason for it, a chemistry between them they must have explored in this other timeline that they hadn't in their own. She wouldn't have expected that answer the way he had done.

"And what did you come up with?"

She didn't seem to notice the irritation in his voice, content as she seemed. From the other side of the swing she picked up a bottle of wine he hadn't known was there and took a nice long swig. This, he thought, his amusement returning, foreshadowed a fairly interesting evening.

"Well…" she drawled and then giggled, pausing to compose herself. "Well…Claudia thinks we should just shag and get it over with."

Connor felt his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline as his head whipped toward her at a speed he thought might have caused him injury. His cheeks warmed, and for a long moment he couldn't do anything but stare, his mouth trapped in a speechless "o" of surprise. She, however, hadn't looked away from the peach-lined clouds rolling past.

"That so?" he asked finally, clearing his throat when his voice came out an octave higher than it should have.

"Mhm. She and Sarah think it'll solve some of this…tension or whatever."

"And what about you?"

"I don't know," she sighed and he rolled his eyes. He was getting really tired of hearing that phrase from her. "It might get rid of some of the awkwardness…_or_ it might double it. Risky business these days, sleeping with one's spouse."

He laughed dryly. "Can't really get much worse, can we?"

She looked to be considering that, which Connor found strange enough as it was. That Abby was having any sort of thoughts about jumping into bed with him for any reason was something he'd never expected he'd see.

"That's true…" she mused, her lips pursed in deliberation. "And it's not like I hadn't thought about it before, even before we got trapped in the Twilight Zone. It was just lower on my priority list than chasing dinosaurs and keeping my twit brother out of trouble."

Again he laughed, not sure what shocked him more: that she had previously thought about having sex with him, or the fact she had referenced _The Twilight Zone_. It was a day for surprises all around.

"So what do you think?" she asked him, and for the life of him he couldn't find a single intelligible thought to express.

Did he want to sleep with Abby?

Was rain wet?

Did the sun rise in the east?

Was Joss Whedon a genius?

"Well I don't know," he replied. "It might be a challenge, you not being my type and all, but I think I could probably manage."

She threw her head back and laughed, really laughed like he hadn't heard from her in a long while. As he watched her she turned toward him for the first time in the whole exchange, her eyes bright and amused, and a bit glassy from the wine.

"Oh bugger off," she chuckled, hitting him lightly on the shoulder. "I'm serious about this. You're my best friend, Connor, and we need to do something before this ruins us."

"Am I?" he asked, smiling softly as he looked away toward the sunset. "Your best friend, I mean. I don't know that you've ever said that before."

She tensed and shifted beside him, pulling her foot off the porch rail so she could stand up and put some distance between them. "Course you are," she huffed, folding her arms across her body. Even standing her body swayed forward and back as though she were still on the swing. He didn't think she even noticed it. "Do you see anyone else around? You were there when Stephen died and Cutter died and Jenny left. You're still here now the world's changed. No one sticks by me like you do, Conn. No one ever has."

He wanted to touch her, to put his arms around her waist and his head on her shoulder and whisper in her ear that everything would be all right. The urge nagged at his stomach and prickled at his arms and legs, but he couldn't make himself do it. It wasn't his place, and she was still drunk.

"You're my best friend, too, you know?" he said finally, his tone matching the gravity of hers. She lifted a shoulder but didn't say anything. "You gave me a place to stay when I didn't have one. You forgave me when I screwed up with Rex on multiple occasions. You never teased me about the Caroline thing, nor held it against me."

Abby chuckled dryly. "She was a right tart, wasn't she?"

Connor went on without comment, needing to get it all out before the opportunity passed. "You take care of me, Abby, when I'm not taking care of myself. Like after Cutter was killed. You made sure I ate and slept and didn't off myself in the bath. You came to stay in my room that first night, remember?"

"He was like a father to you," she whispered, tears in her voice. "I didn't want you to be alone."

He'd never told her that he'd thought of the professor as a sort of father figure, his own dad having died when he was seven. His mother had never really found another steady man until Connor was grown and out of the house, saying she had her little man and that was fine by her. Sure, he'd had teachers and professors and friends who were men, but Cutter had been the first older man to really take Connor under his guidance and put faith in him.

Abby saw all that without having to be told, and she'd helped him without being asked when he'd needed the comfort.

"We're not ruining us," he said with conviction as he hobbled up next to her. He didn't have the guts to hold her, but he pressed his shoulder against hers in a sign of support. "Whatever happens in all this, you and I are going to be fine. We just need to stick together."

She surprised him by turning to wrap her arms around his waist in a fierce hug that almost knocked him over. His ribs ached and he felt precariously balanced, standing on his one good leg, but he didn't dare mention it. This moment was what he'd been waiting for the entire day; he just hadn't known it before.

"Thank you." she whispered into his shoulder. When she shifted, her hair tickled his chin.

He smiled, putting his arms around her shoulders and trying to memorize the feeling. "You're welcome."

They stayed that way as the sun finally rested beneath the horizon and the first stars blinked in the sky.

"So," he said at length, "what was the verdict on the shagging issue?"

She laughed and punch him in the arm as she pulled away, then walked into the house without a word.

"Was that a yes?" he called after her, grinning.

"No!" her answer echoed back.

"Well, then, was that a no?"

Her silence hung dubiously in the air.

"So," he sighed to himself as he rested carefully back onto the swing and folded his arms behind his head, "I guess that wasn't a no, then, either."

_A/N: So a lot of reviewers for the last (real) chapter mentioned Abby's cosplay costume, and I want to open it up to readers. This may or may not come up in a later chapter, but I want to know: what do you think Abby's costume should be? All ideas welcome, but remember that it's something Connor made her wear, so take his personality into consideration. Can't wait to hear your suggestions. _

_And as always, reviews make me write faster! _


	12. It's Too Early For This

_A/N: I know, I know, it's been forever! Blame writer's block and a massively busy month at work. Anyway, hope this chapter makes up for it. This chapter is dedicated to Brumeier, who was the only one to leave a review for Chapter 10. Love you for that. _

* * *

Chapter 12: It's Too Early For This

There were a lot of things Nick Cutter very much liked about his job working on the anomaly project. He was able to be on the front lines of so many new discoveries and unravel such fascinating mysteries. He could take advantage of top-of-the-line technologies the likes of which the University budget would never have dreamed. He worked everyday with people whom he had come to call friends, one of whom happened to be his wife.

And in all that, one part of the job he would never, ever be used to was being woken in the obscene hours of the morning by an emergency which would, inevitably, test him to the very depths of his ingenuity, intellect, and patience.

So when his mobile rang just after 3am, he answered it with a lengthy string of half-intelligible oaths.

Fortunately, the graveyard staff at the ARC was used to this by now and man on the other end simply began his explanation, undeterred. Claudia was already awake and half-dressed by the time he ended the call.

"Should I be preparing for anything specific?" she asked as she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail. She looked tired, he noticed, and maybe a little ill. The circles under her eyes seemed to go deeper than the early wakeup call would warrant.

"You all right, love?"

She looked at him and her eyes softened a bit, her lips curling in a small, wan smile. "Just tired."

"Do you want to stay home? I can cover at the ARC."

She waved it away and went back to dressing.

He watched her for a moment—the efficiency with which she chose clothing and donned it, the practiced hand with which she applied what little makeup she wore—before realizing he was still sitting on the edge of the bed having made no move to get himself ready.

Swiping a hand down his face to dispel the last remnants of sleep, he began to mentally prepare for the mission. "Wear running shoes," he answered her question as an afterthought. "Just in case."

Twenty minutes later they were the first to arrive at the atrium of the ARC. Becker came in shortly after, having briefed his men in the armoury before sending them out to site. Abby turned up next, shadows under her eyes, and then an incomprehensibly rested-looking Sarah. It took Cutter a minute to realize that this would be it—there was no one else coming.

"Okay, boys and girls, we've got a recurrence," Cutter started, his weariness starting to give way to the buzz that always came with a new challenge. "The anomaly opened about an hour ago at the stadium in London where we last met the dodos. Claudia, Abby, I'm sure you both remember that one?"

Abby nodded gravely, looking a bit uncomfortable. She remembered it, he was sure, as the place where she'd had her first real taste of the danger involved in the anomaly project. Tom had been Connor's friend, but it had been she who had been the most exposed in the thick of the crisis. She could have been infected with the parasite and died that day, and he was sure that was something she wouldn't soon forget.

"Was that the Spaghetti Junction anomaly?" Sarah clarified, looking anxious. "Good lord, anything could come through there."

"Due to the hour, there was only a small security staff on the premises," Claudia said, flicking her mobile closed as they all started down the hall towards the garage. "They've been told that a gas leak in the kitchens was picked up by remote monitoring. Becker, is your team in place yet?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied confidently, "The building has been sealed off, search parties show no evidence of creature activity as of their last report, and ten of my best men are monitoring the anomaly itself. I assure you, ma'am, they're armed for any eventuality."

"Oh don't say that," Abby piped in, the corner of her lip quirking in tentative amusement. "You'll jinx us."

Cutter didn't put much stock in jinxes, truth be told, but he found as he threw the car into drive and then took Claudia's hand tightly in his, that he would take every bit of luck he could at the moment. Either way, it seemed destined to be a very long day.

OOO

_Connor was walking through the Forest of Dean following Rex's telltale chirps. The lizard had got loose again, and Abby would kill him if he didn't get him back. So would Anna. _

_The sun was setting quickly, more quickly still in the forest where the canopy threw shadows in every direction. He had to get home soon, but not without Rex. _

_And then Rex was lying in his arms, docile as a lamb, as he walked up the porch steps. The screen door was shut, but the heavy wood door was open to let in the night air. From inside where it was light and warm, he heard laughter and soft, happy music. _

"_Daddy!" a voice squealed with excitement, and he turned to see little Anna—his daughter Anna—running toward him. "Daddy, you found him!"_

_Connor let go of Rex so he could scoop her into his arms. The feeling was familiar and yet entirely not, holding her tightly against him, his face buried in her dark, curly hair. She clung to him with her tiny arms and her tiny hands, all soft and smooth and fragile. He wanted to cry with the sudden tenderness that swept through him. _

"_Connor, love, it's about time. Your mum's just about finished making dinner." _

_Still clutching Anna, he turned to face his wife. Her hair was long and wavy, and her stomach was swollen. She carried a basket of rolls in one hand as she waved him down the hall with the other. _

"_Your dad's upstairs moving that wardrobe in the guest room I've been asking you to move all month."_

"_All taken care of," Nick Cutter cut in as he descended the stairs and walked past into the kitchen._

"_Thanks Dad," Abby grinned and then threw Connor a look that said at least someone around the place was doing what he was supposed to have done. She took Anna and hitch her on her own hip before heading down the hallway. "Anyway, dinner's on the table so get your—"_

"_I love you," he told her, feeling stupid and at the same time feeling everything in the world was exactly what it was supposed to be. _

_And then an anomaly opened in the hallway between them, taking up the entire height and width of the space. Connor stood on one side, his family on the other, their voices calling to him as though from a long distance. _

"Connor," _he heard across the void. _"Connor, mate, get up."

He jerked awake.

"What? Where's—where's Abby? Where's…" He stopped himself before he spoke the name of the daughter he didn't have, and it took a moment to convince himself that she really wouldn't come running in from somewhere. He could still feel her soft, small arms around his neck.

"Abby got called in early," Danny replied, not seeming to notice is momentary lapse. "Anomaly alert. She asked me to come by and help you get ready for work."

Right. Because he wasn't on active duty, he wouldn't have got the call as she had, and she wouldn't have bothered waking him. It pulled a bit at his guts again, the idea the he was stuck on desk duty while everyone else was off playing heroes. Was this, he wondered, how Peter Parker had felt during the time he'd given up his superpowers?

As he pulled his bum leg over the side of the couch, he noticed a folded sheet of paper sitting underneath his mobile and picked it up to read.

Connor~

Got called in and didn't want to wake you. Anyway, be glad you're missing the 3am wakeup call. I'm going to have Danny come by and give you a lift to work. Hopefully I'll be back there by the time you get in.

See you soon.

~Abby

Connor read it twice, trying to divine some insight into her mood when she wrote it. It sounded casual, no hint of the awkwardness or coldness of the previous morning, and that sparked a hope that the uncertain truce of the night before probably still held. He'd half-expected her to have forgotten the whole conversation. As it was, he couldn't be sure how much of it had been the wine and how much had been genuine, but the tone of the note, and the fact that she'd written one, went a long way towards assuaging his uneasiness.

"All right, mate?" Danny asked as he reentered the room with a pair of sweatpants and one of Connor's shirts. "You look like you could use a proper bath. Need some help with that?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," Connor replied, refolding the note and setting it aside for later perusal. "I still feel like I brought half the Cretaceous back with me."

Between the two of them, they managed to get Connor undress, in and out of the tub, and dressed again in less time than it would have taken Connor to wash his hair on his own. He felt more himself—more human, even—once he was clean and groomed. It felt like it was a new start in this unfamiliar place and only now could he really be prepared for it.

As Danny drove them to the ARC, Connor thought back on the dream he'd had and the little girl with dark, curly hair. Already it felt so far away, the details starting to blur in the brightness of the morning. Still, he could feel the small arms around his neck and, only faintly, remember the way her hair smelled. It was a stupid dream, he told himself. A fantasy he'd never even thought to want at his age. He didn't want it, really.

But all the way to the ARC, he couldn't get her voice out of his head.

When they got in, the whole place seemed alight with activity. But then, he reasoned, there had been an early morning anomaly alert. Still, something was off. None of the team seemed present in the atrium, but a passing lab tech told them they might have more luck in the medical wing. She couldn't be any more specific as to the circumstances.

Connor was half-crazy by the time they got down there, going over scenarios in his head both plausible and implausible. He didn't even know what era the anomaly had opened to, so he imagined every kind of creature attack from another gorgonopsid to a smilodon to any number of future beasts they had never encountered before. He remembered the raptors in the Cretaceous and how she'd tried to lure them away from him. She was too bloody fearless for her own good sometimes, so it had to be she who'd been hurt. There was no question in his mind.

So when he saw her sitting next to Sarah in hallway outside an exam room, staring down at her hands, he thought his heart might just give out.

"Abby, what's happened?" he demanded, resisting the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her with the force of his relief. "Who's been hurt?"

Abby looked up at the sound of his voice, and something that might have been relief spread across her face. "She's okay, they think," she breathed, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. "Claudia, I mean. She took a knock during a syntarsus attack, but they think she's fine. They're just worried…"

Her voice tailed away as she glanced back through the viewing window of the room in which, Connor assumed, Claudia was being examined. A privacy curtain had been pulled across it, shielding the room.

"She was unconscious for a while," Sarah explained, her arms around Danny. Connor spared a moment to be surprised about that, but it wasn't top priority. "She woke up not long after they got her here, but they wanted to run some tests. She's already sustained one concussion from a…what? A pterosaur? A second could be worrisome."

"Cutter's in there with her?"

Abby nodded, leaning back again in her chair. "He came out to let us know she was awake and about the tests and everything. That was about twenty minutes ago. I think…"

She cut off again as a nurse strode down the hall towards them and then, without a word, turned into the exam room. Connor had a brief view of Claudia sitting up in bed, Cutter beside her, speaking calmly with a doctor, before the door closed again. Seconds later, she came back out and walked back the same way she'd come.

"Did she look worried?" Sarah asked, folding her arms.

Danny shook his head, a hand on her shoulder. "No, of course not. That's how she always looks, face all scrunched up like she's smelled something foul. I think it's permanent."

Sarah chuckled and sighed, staring at the unmoving, unchanging door. Connor maneuvered his chair beside Abby. Seconds ticked by.

"Tell us about the anomaly," Connor said finally, looking for something to fill the silence. "You said it was a syntarsus? So that's late Triassic, maybe early Jurassic era. Where did it open?"

"A stadium in London," Sarah supplied. "It opened once before, right? One of the first ones you lot dealt with?"

For a moment Connor felt like he'd taken a hard jab to the gut. He could still see Tom, crouching over Abby. Tom, his eyes unnaturally blue and blank. Tom, falling into his arms, breathing his last breath.

He didn't realize his fists had vised around on the chair's armrests until Abby put a hand on his wrist and squeezed gently. She didn't look at him, kept her eyes on Sarah, but he caught her sneaking glances at him and knew she was watching for his reactions. The concern was absurdly touching.

"Anyway, Becker got an update while we were still on our way saying something had come through the anomaly. Turned out to be a…What did Cutter say? A lethosarsus?"

"Lesothosaurus?" Connor corrected. "Bipedal, about," he held his hands about a metre apart, "that big?"

Abby nodded. "Fast little buggers, I can tell you that. I guess two of them slipped through Becker's men almost before they knew there was something there. By the time we got there and sealed the anomaly they'd completely disappeared, and you know how big that stadium is. We spent half the morning tracking them down."

"All right, so how does the syntarsus come into play?"

"We had to tranquilize the leso…whatevers to keep them still enough to get them back through the anomaly, so someone had to take them back through. Cutter, of course, volunteered, but Claudia…" Abby's voice tailed away again, her expression pained.

"What?"

"She sort of went to pieces, completely out of character," Sarah explained. "Started crying, telling him not to go. Telling him that if he went without her, she would disappear like you guys said happened before. She said she could feel it."

Danny swore under his breath. "So he took her with him, and she got hurt."

Connor sighed, understanding why Abby looked so guilty. They'd put the thought in her head.

"We don't know exactly what happened on the other side, but she was unconscious when Cutter carried her out. Becker lost two men; he's taking that pretty hard. And then with what happened to Claudia, I think he blames himself." She looked back at the door, staring hard as though willing it to open. "I'm hoping to call him with some good news pretty soon."

All eyes seemed to follow hers, resting expectantly on the door. The minutes passed.

OOO

"Well," the doctor began, flipping with infuriating languor through the just-arrived files, "though I'm sure it didn't help anything, it looks like the blow to the head wasn't the problem. The CT scan shows so concussion, no trauma whatsoever."

He looked up at them with a small, secret smile on his face, and Cutter thought he might hit the man. What, he wondered, was the doctor talking about, and why the bloody hell did he look so pleased about it?

Claudia seemed more composed, sitting with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her face still streaked with prehistoric dirt. "So what was the problem, then?" she asked much more calmly than he would have.

"Mrs. Cutter, it seems you simply fainted."

Claudia looked taken aback, almost insulted. "Pardon me, but I've never fainted in my life."

The doctor's smile widened, and the urge to hit him grew exponentially. "It might happen a time or two in the next few months," he explained vaguely. "Completely normal, nothing to worry about."

"What do you mean, nothing to…"

"Mr. and Mrs. Cutter," he interrupted, looking positively chipper, "I assume you weren't aware that you're expecting."

Cutter frowned. "Expecting what?"

He looked to his wife, only to find her staring at the doctor, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide. "You're quite sure?" she asked, slightly breathless.

"Positive, ma'am. About seven weeks."

Cutter felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as his brain caught up with the situation. "A baby?" he asked dumbly, head swiveling between the two. "We're having a baby?"

Claudia's face split into a grin so beautiful he thought he might have just fallen in love with her all over again. "A baby," she echoed, touching her stomach gently.

"Congratulations," the doctor said, and suddenly he seemed much less noxious than a moment previously.

"And the baby's okay after today?" Claudia asked, suddenly anxious.

"Just fine. While you're here, though, I would like to discuss your prenatal care, if we could. I'll also need to prescribe some prenatal vitamins."

"Yes, um—"

Claudia didn't get further before Cutter, swept away by the heady joy of the moment, snogged her blind.

"I have to let the others know you're okay," he said softly, kissing her once more and then again. "Can I tell them?"

"Oh go ahead," she chuckled. "Get out of the way so I can talk to the doctor."

He nodded, standing on shaky legs and walking mechanically to the door.

On the other side, the whole team save Becker were sitting, waiting, looking like mourners at a funeral. He wanted to run over and hug each one of them. Or maybe he'd just burst into a million pieces.

"She's just fine," he said, unable to keep from laughing, "and so's the baby."

Four pairs of eyes widened in shock. "The baby?"

Cutter laughed again, his joy uncontainable. "Yes, the baby."

And without another word, he shut the door on them and returned to his wife, unable to keep away from her for one moment longer.


	13. Casualties

_A/N: Yes, I know, it's been an age and a day since I updated. And yes, I know I promised not to do that. And yes, I know that I wrote on my profile that this story was still as alive as ever—I wasn't lying about that. I just got really busy, what with working, writing a book, watching the latest two series of the show, and then (now) swearing off television for a year._

_I hit a block somewhere around the last time I posted and so, as I often do, I started writing from the end backwards. At the same time I kept adding bits and pieces to this chapter as they came to me. Consequently, I started writing this chapter the day after I last posted and finished writing it about ten minutes ago, but I did a great many things in the interim. Anyway, after all that trouble, here's the next chapter. I really hope it's at least worth half the wait._

* * *

Chapter 13: Casualties

At Professor Cutter's unexpected proclamation, the crowd outside Claudia's hospital room let out sighs of relief and exclamations of joy. When the Cutters came out ten minutes later, the whole team joined in on the celebration, congratulating both father and mother with warmest enthusiasm.

Back in the main atrium, champagne was produced from some secret hideaway and passed around, Health and Safety be damned. Becker smiled tightly and offered his congratulations in a tone, Abby thought, much too somber for the occasion. Lester's good wishes were reserved as well, though no one had expected differently. They didn't even blink when he added in his dry, sardonic voice, "I already feel like I'm running a daycare centre. Might as well make it official."

In all the excitement, Abby didn't notice Connor's absence until one of the lab assistants, unaware of the faux pas, asked her if she was planning to follow Claudia's example anytime soon. Abby only smiled politely and shook her head, and then looked around for her "husband" thinking he might enjoy the joke as well.

She found him in a rarely used laboratory that had in recent days come to be known as his unofficial workshop, the same way the greenhouse had come to be known as hers. His back was to her when she entered, his hands busy at some unseen piece of machinery, but he looked up and smiled when the squeak of her shoes announced her presence.

"Helen's anomaly device," he explained superfluously as she hovered over his shoulder. "Doesn't work anymore, obviously. Out of power, you see. But I think it's about time I take a look inside, try to piece together how it works."

"Is this really the moment? Everyone's celebrating. Come have a glass of champagne with me."

He smiled tightly and turned back to the device. "Can't, can I? Might mix with my pain medications and make me even more…something or other."

It was an excuse and she knew it, but she let it slide. Over the past few days she'd seen him pick up and put down the anomaly device about a dozen times, always with the same regretful expression.

"Why'd you never open it up before?" she asked, taking a seat on the stool next to him. "I know you've wanted to."

"Too dangerous," he explained, turning it in his hands to examine from every angle. "The locking mechanism, the detector—those are pretty passive. The world probably isn't going to end if the detector malfunctions. But this…this is a serious piece of kit. What if I crossed the wrong wires and accidentally opened an anomaly here in the ARC, and then I couldn't figure out how to close it again? What if I let something out that we couldn't control? A Predator? Or something worse, even?"

"And what's suddenly changed?"

He was quiet for a long time, staring down at the device like he was expecting it to speak to him. He still had yet to open it.

"I had a dream last night," he said finally, his voice unusually soft, "that I had a daughter."

It wasn't what she'd been expecting him to say. It wasn't something she'd ever imagined hearing from him, truth be told. When he spoke, it was with…not quite sadness. Wistfulness, maybe, with a touch of longing that surprised her. He'd never struck her as the paternal type.

"I had a wife and a father. My mother was making dinner in the kitchen, and I could just hear her singing to the radio like she always would do when I was a kid. But this little girl, she was…" he paused, an intense look of pain flashing momentarily across his face. "She was beautiful. Soft. Fragile. And then an anomaly opened, and it all just disappeared. She was gone—they all were."

Abby watched him, an unfamiliar mix of emotions spreading, hot and oppressive, through her chest. It surprised her, the intensity of her own reaction; she wanted to cry for the family he'd lost, imaginary though they were. Her hand on his shoulder was an offer of comfort, even if she didn't understand him. She understood about pain, about loss; that was enough.

He looked up at her, then down at her hand on his shoulder, and a look of something like gratitude crossed his face. Placing a hand over hers, he stared for a moment into her face as though trying to find something there.

Maybe the face of the wife in his dream, she mused, a smile quirking at the corner of her lips before she caught herself and shook the thought away. It was a perfectly natural conclusion to jump to, she allowed, given all that had happened recently, but her own gut reaction didn't quite sit well with her.

Connor cleared his throat, seeming to come back to himself at the same moment she did. "Well the point is, it's getting more dangerous. We got home from the Cretaceous mostly on luck, and we changed the whole bloody world in the process. If this device can reduce or even eliminate the possibility of that happening again, I think that's worth a little risk."

She took her hand away again, the moment thoroughly broken. "So you're going to try to recreate the technology?"

"That's the idea. From what I can tell, ever since Helen blew the ARC Cutter's been recreating his time-map on the computer. Every new anomaly has been added automatically using an algorithm I'm pretty sure I designed myself. So the time-map is there, incomplete but growing more comprehensive with every new occurrence. And this little beauty…"

He picked up a screwdriver, rolling it absently between his hands, his eyes focused with a ferocious determination on the device. It was a look Abby had seen only a few times in their acquaintance, and in that moment she felt the vague, unsettling feeling that he'd just slipped away from her.

"This thing is going to show me how it all comes together."

OOO

Becker was stood off to the side, sipping occasionally at a flute of champagne in an attempt to look less apart from everyone, when Sarah sidled up beside him looking like she was on a mission of her own. Becker sighed inwardly and took another pointed sip.

"You're not celebrating."

She said it as an accusation, same as one might say, "You're parked in my space" or "You took the last biscuit."

"Sure I am," he replied without much conviction. "See, I have champagne."

"What's wrong?"

He just shook his head and went back to scanning the room. It was second nature after so long in the military. Survey access points, points of weakness, points of advantage, potential threats. Note the position and status of each team member—safe, exposed, unaccounted for. Abby and Connor had disappeared again, likely together and reasonably safe. Danny was drinking more than the others; he warranted watching.

"Hey," Sarah interrupted his mental inventory, poking him in the side until he was forced to look at her.

"What is it?" he snapped, turning to loom over her from his not inconsiderable height.

She didn't retreat an inch. "I was going to ask you the same question. Claudia's fine—better than fine—so what's got you looking so glum?"

"I lost two men today, in case you've forgotten, so my apologies for not cheering their deaths," he bit back, and she did withdraw a step, contrite.

"I'm sorry, Becker. I wasn't thinking."

He shook away her apology, clenching his jaw in an effort to maintain his control. This wasn't the place or time to discuss this. The Cutters deserved this moment of celebration, even if he couldn't share in it.

"I need to go be with my men," he said abruptly, placing the barely touched champagne on a lab table. "Please make my excuses if I'm missed."

Then he strode away, not looking at her, knowing she felt horrible but unable to make himself turn back. As he strode down the hall towards the gym where he knew his men would still be gathered after debriefing, he tried to get himself back under control, compartmentalize the events of the day. Right now he needed to be a strong leader.

He was happy for the Cutters—he really was—but that didn't erase what had happened that morning. He had failed. He had neglected his mission to keep his team safe, and that neglect could have cost more than two men's lives.

With the new knowledge of Claudia's condition, he kept going back over the past seven weeks, all the missions she'd been on and the dangers she'd been exposed to. He wasn't used to questioning his own abilities; he was good at his job, no one better. Still, he had to wonder at all the possibilities, all the ways it could have gone wrong.

That was all he'd been able to think about as he'd watched Claudia being congratulated by one member of the ARC personnel after another, her hand held tightly in that of her husband as they talked animatedly about sexes and names and plans to be made. Whilst they'd been thinking of nursery colours, he'd thought only of how many ways this day could have ended in unmitigated tragedy.

So as he stepped into the gym and greeted his mourning brothers in arms, as they knelt to pray for the souls of their lost comrades as they had done countless times before, he added a silent prayer for all those near misses, asking for the fortitude to never let his guard down again.

OOO

Sarah, too, had noticed as Danny finished a third and fourth drink. It was her natural tendency in recent days to watch him and to watch out for him. To own it, she'd been doing so for far longer than she was willing to admit, but that was another subject for another day. Today she was simply keeping an eye on her boyfriend and, at that direct moment, observing his first heavy-handed steps towards being exceptionally wankered.

After an acceptable length of time, he opted for expediency and nicked a full bottle from one of the tables before making a bee-line for the door. Sarah looked around to see if anyone noticed, but if they did, no one seemed bothered. The detector was conveniently silent, and as long as it stayed so, everyone seemed happy enough to call it an unexpected holiday.

Following him out, she watched from a distance the preciseness of his stride, the way his head didn't dip or loll. To everyone else he probably looked perfectly fine, but to Sarah it was obvious he had something on his mind. She trailed him discreetly down one corridor, around a bend, down another. Whether he had a fixed destination or was just wandering about, she couldn't guess. When he stopped at the door of an empty laboratory, she paused to see what he would do.

He leaned against the wall just before it, his arms hanging heavily at his sides, and waited a moment, his back to her. She watched him, confused.

"Are you going to stand back there all day?" he asked finally, his voice tired.

She sighed and jogged to catch up, slowing as he turned to face her. His expression was one of bone-deep weariness, completely out of place, she thought, for so early in the day.

"You're a sore sight," she sighed fondly, brushing the hair out of his face. "Any excuse for a drink, eh?"

He rolled his eyes and pushed through the door into the empty lab, holding it open for her to follow. "It's not every day you can get royally pissed on the boss's dime, so I say, why not take advantage while you can?"

He hopped up to sit on a table and patted a place next to him, and she happily obliged. The hand still clutching the champagne bottle curled around her neck, and with a gentle, practiced hand she took it from him and set it on her other side. Then she leaned into his side and enjoy the way he rested his cheek against the top of her head and, under the smell of champagne, she could make out the scent of his aftershave.

"Are you alright?" she asked after a long, easy moment.

His smile faltered but persevered. "M'fine," he said lightly, giving her shoulder a soft squeeze. "Right as rain. Why do you ask?"

She held up the still full bottle, her eyes never leaving his face, and his expression softened into something like self-deprecation.

"I'm fine," he repeated more firmly. "I just keep thinking that this is going to get less strange, you know? That I'll get used to it." He sighed deeply, the movement shifting her so her forehead was cradled in the curve of his neck. "And then just when I get to thinking maybe I'm used to it, something like this happens."

"Claudia being pregnant," she inferred, feeling a twinge of something like jealousy at how hung up on this he still was. Why should it matter to him, she asked herself as she picked at the dirt under her fingernails, if Claudia were having triplets with James Lester? Danny and the Other Claudia had never been lovers, if she had her facts straight, nor had they ever been anything other than colleagues or freshly acquainted friends.

"It just boggles the mind a bit," he answered, his voice far away. "In my world, before the anomaly, neither of them existed. And now they're having a kid." He shook his head, chuckling. "And Connor and Abby are married but not, and you and I are together, and I keep wondering if one of these days I'm going to walk through another anomaly and screw something else up."

She pulled away sharply. "That's how you think of this—a screw-up?"

He kept shaking his head, looking somewhere off into the corner without seeming to notice her tone. "We changed things so much. It's all different than it was."

"Nothing's changed for me!"

She didn't mean to yell it, but suddenly she was on her feet and in his face, standing between his knees as his legs dangled off the edge of the table. He looked stunned and confused, and because she didn't know what else to do, she took up the full champagne bottle and threw it against the wall.

"What the hell has gotten into you?"

She turned away, incensed, and then turned back. What right did he have to keep doing this to her? She wasn't just some player in his delusion, and this wasn't a dream he was going to wake up from. Every time he talked about that other world, of which she had no memory and had, therefore, taken no part, he was putting her in that place, making her a stand-in for whatever he'd wanted back then. And Sarah was no one's stand-in.

"Damn it, Danny, you keep talking like this is all temporary—like it's some kind of game you're playing while you're waiting for everything to go back to normal. But this is my _life_! This is how I feel and what I want, so stop your fucking playacting and get on with it!"

"Now wait a minute…" he started, but she spoke over him, coming to a decision in the time it took for him to get up the bottle to talk.

"I meant what I said before, Danny. I'm not looking to complicate your life because it's quite obviously complicated enough."

"Sarah…"

"Evidently, there are still some things you need to work through, and this…relationship…" She shook her head incredulously, unsure if that was even the word to use after less than 72 hours together, most of which had been spent either in total confusion or in a kind of lust-fueled blindness. "It doesn't seem to be making those things any clearer for you, so I'm just going to let you figure it out on your own. Truth be told, I'm really not interested in being your distraction."

She looked at Danny for a reaction, and what she saw was an expression in his eyes unexpectedly more serious, more sincere than she ever remembered seeing before. "Please don't do this," he said, his voice steady and almost harsh with sudden conviction, every hint of tipsy jocularity gone. "Just listen to me for one minute, okay? Whatever you think I'm unclear on, it's not you and me."

"Oh I know," she chuckled mirthlessly. "It's Claudia and Jenny Lewis and Nick and the world in general. It's the time-space continuum and alternate realities and all the rest of that bloody _Dr. Who_ rubbish."

"Sarah, please…"

"I really like you, Danny," she said firmly, forcing herself not to be pulled in and forget what she meant to be doing, "and I think you might even like me as much. The thing is, you're not the same Danny who went through that anomaly after Helen, and I'll never be the woman you wanted before this all happened. We keep trying to be, but we're not."

"Damn it, woman, would you just…"

Again she spoke over him, not an easy task when, for the first time since they began, he was actually trying to fight for her. "So when we start again, if we start again, we do it without the history, without reference to what may or may not have been in other realities. Just us."

He looked away, his jaw set in resentful stubbornness, and she raised a hand to smooth away the stiffness there. She didn't want to hurt him any more than she enjoyed the moment for herself. It tore at her knowing that, if she just chose to, she could simply forget everything she'd said and fall into him, take what comfort and affection he offered and let herself be, if not happy, at least mollified.

Danny took hold of her wrist to stop her movement, his eyes turning on her with a sort of caged violence that would have scared her had she not known him so well.

"We're not through," he said firmly, pushing to his feet so she had to take a sharp step back to avoid a collision. "We _will_ talk about this again."

She only nodded, knowing everything she trusted herself to say had been said, and then she walked calmly from the room.

Halfway down the hall she heard the first sounds of shattering glass.

* * *

_A/N: Yes, again, I know you hate me, especially for going straight from happy pregnancy news to an angsty, dramatic breakup. Honestly, this last third was not at all planned this way, but Sarah refused to let me be happy. And now, damn her obstinacy, I have to alter a lot of what I wrote on for the last chapters. _

_Oh well, I do really hope that it isn't too long before my next chapter, but I won't endeavor to make any promises I'll be obliged to break. All I can say is that I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I hope to get another one to you soon. _


End file.
